exams

Four R’s of Effective Evaluation

Because so much depends upon the evaluation of a student’s learning and the resulting grade, it is in everyone’s interest to try to make the evaluation system as free from irrelevant errors as possible. Borrowing from the evaluation literature, I propose the four R’s of

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A Method to Prevent Cheating on Online Exams

Face-to-face instructors who give in-class exams have a challenge when moving their courses online: How to ensure that students do not cheat on the exams by collaborating? Different methods have been developed to address the problem. For instance, institutions can send each student a 360-degree

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Test Questions and Quizzing Improve Exam Performance

Sometimes courses with large enrollments spawn useful innovations, and this study looked at one empirically. Large courses almost always mandate the use of multiple-choice tests, and incorporating quizzes in these courses can present sizeable logistical challenges. To cope with that situation in a large microbiology

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Should Students Change Answers on Exams?

Should students change their answers on multiple choice questions? Believe it or not, that question has been explored empirically rather at length. Is it an important enough query to merit quantitative analysis? In and of itself, maybe not, but I wonder whether it isn’t related

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Using a Data-Driven Approach to Write Better Exams

Like many faculty members, I started teaching as a subject matter expert without a formal background in education. My examination questions were either based on questions I recall from my personal experience as an undergraduate or questions provided to me by more senior faculty. Since

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Make Your Exams More Secure by Using Question Banks

As many classes and exams migrate online, many professors are increasingly concerned about an uptick in cheating. Preliminary numbers indicate those concerns are valid. In August 2020, Derek Newton in The Hechinger Report disclosed that at North Carolina State University, for example, 200 students in

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More on Learning from Exams

My interest in making exams more about learning and less about grades continues. I’m also a realist: exams will always be about grades. But could they please be at least a bit more about learning? The best way to increase learning focus is with strategies

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