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Tests and examinations

3 février 2020, 12:41

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Today education as a whole has been reduced to passing examinations in order to be admitted to schools of one’s choice (at PSAC level), getting 5 credits to have access of Higher education, getting the best results to get state scholarships. To the question “why do children go to school”, most will answer, “to pass examinations and get a qualification or certificate”. It is necessary to study the importance of tests and examinations and consider whether we are using the results of these tests and examinations for a good purpose.

I will not take the leftist view that examinations are a cheap tool provided to employers to avoid initially having to test who they employ. Exams help them get a broad idea of the brilliant, the average and below average. 2 facts of examinations:   exams have a poor predictive quality because they only judge a student's ability under set conditions and limited time. Many times a student who is otherwise good may get anxious or confused under strict exam conditions and may not perform up to the mark. Secondly, many exams encourage teaching to the test practice. This is to say, teaching a fixed curriculum focused on passing a specific exam. This method limits the curriculum to a set range of knowledge and memory skills that do not provide many educational benefits.

Let us consider tests and exams in the broadest manner and the use that is supposed to be made of them. Teachers teach content then test students. Tests seek to see what students have learned. However, there can be other more complex reasons as to why schools use tests and examinations. At the school level, educators use examinations (assessments, tests and other means) to measure their students' understanding of specific content or the effective application of critical thinking skills and memory test. 

Summative (happening at the end of the course) tests are used to evaluate student learning, skill level growth and academic achievements at the end of an instructional period, such as the end of a term, program or school year. They are used to determine whether students have learned what they were expected to learn or to level or degree to which students have learned the material. They may be used to measure learning progress and achievement and to evaluate the effectiveness of educational programs. They are recorded as scores, grades, or credits for a student’s academic record for promotion to a higher class or for state scholarships, as in Mauritius HSC examinations, amongst others.

The question to be asked is whether Cambridge SC and HSC examinations (that have been replaced in literally every country that used them in the past) serve the above purposes. How far do they test skills, competences, academic achievements, learning received etc?

Role of teachers

The obvious point of examinations is to assess what students have learned after the completion of a course or year. When examinations are tied to well-written lesson objectives, a teacher can analyze the results to see where the majority of students did well or need more work. Regular tests (regular assessments and assignments, first term tests and second term mock examinations help the teacher create small groups or to use differentiated instructional strategies to support weak students. 

Educators can also use tests as teaching tools, especially if a student did not understand the questions or directions. Teachers may also use tests when they are discussing student progress at team meetings, during student assistance programs or at parent-teacher conferences. Having a clear understanding of the needs of the class and the needs of each individual student, the teacher is in a better position to modify his teaching style and teaching materials and even repeat certain portions of his lessons to get the best results. Now that school presence is compulsory and students cannot be absent throughout the third term, teachers have no excuse.

In this case, it is necessary to consider what remedial work the teacher did following second term results of those sitting for SC last year and the forecast grades they gave, as required by Cambridge. These forecast grades should have been already an indication of the catastrophe that was imminent. Parents should use this in order to find out want went wrong and the role of the teacher when the student fails to get the required credit in a particular subject. What was the responsibility of the teacher in the first place if a student fails to get a credit? Should we tell the student alone that he is to blame and denied access to higher education?

School level

Tests and examinations at the school level determine student strengths and weaknesses. One effective example of this is when teachers use pretests at the beginning of the year or lessons to find out what students already know and figure out where to focus the lesson. A student, who was in Form 4 and now moves to Form 5, was already examined in his previous year. What use was made of the previous year’s examination results? There is an assortment of tests that can help target a weakness in decoding or accuracy as well as learning style and multiple intelligences tests to help teachers learn how to meet the needs of their students through instructional techniques. 

For those students who failed to get a credit, did the school do its job? Did the Head of school or department monitor regularly the progress of the student in all subjects? Were parents informed of these monitoring exercises and were they mentored how to support the weak student? Are school reports on these available for the public to see?

In many countries, merit pay was introduced to motivate teachers and schools to do better. Often examination results are used to provide additional reward to those who really worked very hard indeed. Though there is much debate about merit pay, I believe, like in all professions, rewards must be provided to those who perform adequately or excessively well and some form of “punishment” (whether it is by  name and shame) or training given to those that need it. It is interesting that Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in schools is now seen as an objective to be achieved in the present term of government. Probably PRB should link CPD to all forms of increment provided. 

Obsolete examinations

Exam as a form of assessment were created in the 19th century. We are now in the 21st century and the skills that were tested through exams in the 19th century are not the same set of skills required in the 21st century. Pedagogues can easily prove that our Cambridge SC and HSC exams are still archaic and an outdated approach of learning and how knowledge is tested.

Exams can’t test all sources of learning; it is constricted to the knowledge provided by a collection of few sources. Therefore, the use of the internet and other sources is a distraction from the given texts, and students should consequently limit their learning to the syllabus and the related curriculum as provided in textbooks. Cambridge periodically reviews its curricula, but the bulk of the syllabus remains the same over a long period.

Textbooks, that follow the syllabus, present information at the time in which they were written (though successful textbooks have revised editions that add few changes) and do not always present current developments in the field. Exams are not a wholesome measure to test the information a student has in a particular field with its focus on grades (fail, pass, credit, very good) and whether a student will pass or fail a certain subject. This consequently is shifting the focus from curiosity and learning to how well an individual can memorize a set of things.

When exams are the only tool used to test knowledge held by the person and when a student’s performance and grade and future is completely dependent on how well they write an exam, we have a problem. Programs such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) "assess student work as direct evidence of achievement" that students may use in college applications.

Brain development: 90% of Brain Growth Happens Before Kindergarten

From birth to age 4/5, a child’s brain develops more than at any other time in life. Early brain development has a lasting impact on a child’s ability to learn and succeed in school and life. The quality of a child’s experiences in the first few years of life – positive or negative – helps shape how their brain develops.

At birth, the average baby’s brain is about a quarter of the size of the average adult brain. Incredibly, it doubles in size in the first year. It keeps growing to about 80% of adult size by age 3 and 90% – nearly full grown – by age 5. The child’s brain development depends on so many factors, including food intake, social interaction, emotional equilibrium, self-confidence etc..

The responsibility of the school and the teacher, from the time the child enters kindergarten, is enormous because it shapes the future of the child and it is unfortunate that we have taken ages to give due importance to early childhood education.

Latest Research in cognitive development

The cognitive capacities that develop during the school years do not develop in linear stages as traditionally defined by Piaget and others, and taught by traditional lecturers in conversative institutions. There is consensus, with substantial empirical support, that four large-scale reorganizations occur between ages 4 and 18. At approximately age 4, children develop the capacity to construct simple relationships of representations, coordinating two or more ideas. The capacity for concrete operations emerges at age 6-7, as children become able to deal with complex problems about concrete objects and events. The first level of formal operations appears at age 10-12, when children can build general categories based on concrete instances and when they can begin to reason hypothetically. Abilities take another leap forward at age 14-16, when children develop the capacity to relate abstractions or hypotheses. 

When these stages are studied carefully the evidence is that generally middle class children who get parental and other forms of support do relatively well. Children from poorer families do not do less well because of the family, social and cultural environment in which grow up.
Research on Social development and cognitive development suggests that social interaction plays a central role in cognitive development in the school years. Much of the course of normal cognitive development seems to involve a process of guided reinvention, in which the child constructs new skills with the help of constant support and guidance from the social environment.

Thus it is not fair for the general public (including those who engage in teaching and examinations) to make all kinds of generalisations with regards to why students fail to get 5 credits. To call them lazy, not hard working, wasting their time on mobile phones or internet etc is off the point. I challenge most of these middle aged detractors to see whether they can learn as fast as even the youngest of students on the use of internet and mobiles. 

There are innumerable instances of children with no schooling at all mastering the uses of internet (e.g. the Hole in the Wall project in India). The Hole in the Wall Project in India has shown that with a single PC, children can learn to do most or all of the following tasks in approximately three months: 1. basic computer navigation functions, such as click, drag, open, close, resize, minimize and menu selection, 2. drawing and painting pictures on the computer,3. loading and saving files, 4. downloading and playing games 5. running educational software and other programs 6. playing music and videos, and viewing photos and pictures 7. surfing the Internet, if a broadband connection is available 8. setting up email accounts 9. sending and receiving email 10. using social networking programs, such as chat rooms (AIM, Google Chat, etc.), Skype and Facebook, 11. simple troubleshooting, such as fixing speakers that aren't playing sound, 12. downloading and playing streaming media. 

I challenge most adults who make sweeping statements about lazy students to do as well as these illiterate children. 

There has to be shift in learning and knowledge seeking from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation. Students should want to study and learn about the world or whatever it is they are interested in. Classrooms should foster intrinsic motivation. Exams do not successfully bring about intrinsic motivation among ALL their candidates. Exams as the only technique to evaluate performance are not enough. Exams shift the focus from learning to grades achieved and bring about extrinsic motivation for studying. Our schools should provide other alternatives to be educated, to gain knowledge, to be responsible and hard-working citizens. Banning students from higher academic education on the basis of an ill-conceived and badly executed examination is unjust, unfair and immoral. Letting others do business as usual and continue to be remunerated as if they have no responsibility is even more unjust and more damning. Why should students and parents ALONE pay the brunt of an unfair system?