Another useful video by Dr Stephen Chew on study skills and examination.
Examinations could be highly effectively in mass assessing students of Higher Education in an objective way. Most of us (as educators) have gone through the examination processes in Universities and Colleges. Indeed examinations could be critical in determining the grades of students in a College or University degree, and such practice might not change in the foreseeable future.
Examinations are still useful for undergraduate and graduate studies up to PhDs, or even professional association admission or accreditation. So it is important to learn those examination skills, in order to achieve good results and meet the goals.
Examinations are, however summative assessment tool and there are little that the learners could do to change the results of the examination, unless there are feedback to the learners on where they are fallen short of, in terms of their “mistakes” or “wrong answers” so they could correct.
Whilst examinations are still important tool in assessing students in Higher Education, there is now a trend towards using various combination of formative and summative assessments – authentic or real life assessment tasks, problem based assignments, workplace projects, and workplace based assessment as a more holistic educational tool in the assessment process, apart from the formal examinations.
In my post here, I share the following:
If assessment is so important in formal education, why do people still prefer to adopt the instrumental teaching based principally on mass lecture, tests and examination rather than assessment as an effective pedagogy? Take a test or examination, and if you could pass it, you are qualified for a pass of the unit. Isn’t it simple?
Some of us might have watched this video.
So, a lot of students would ask a basic question: Are the lecture materials delivered by the teacher during the lesson to be tested in the tests and examinations? If not, could we focus just on what is to be tested or examined, and leave the rest to be “learnt” outside the classroom? This is exactly the type of questions most students are asking in each semester, in a traditional lecture type of education and learning. Is that what the educators are most concerned too? Teaching the content of examination or test to the students, so students could achieve high marks in the assessments. So, why not teaching to the test?
A test and or examination is a typical assessment tool used in education for decades. That’s where students could demonstrate their competency, and that is how assessment is conducted in most schools. And if students are learning in online distance education, then they would be expected to submit the standard assignments (say completing a 2,000 words essay or answering a series of questions as required in the problem or project set), attend the examination, and if they pass in both assessment, congratulations!
Doing assessment requires more than the mere completion of the written assignments. An excellent example of assignments as shown here requires the preparation and collection of evidences, and through an exploration and research process in the assessment, the learners would be able to demonstrate the competency required. Also learners could identify their own learning needs and gaps in the learning process, when working through the assignments. With the feedback from peers and or facilitators, the learner could also identify what would need to do to improve his or her learning. These will all involve sensemaking (giving meaning to experience) and metacognition (cognition about cognition or knowing about knowing).
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