The Problem with Exams M. Selen, UIUC Physics - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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The Problem with Exams M. Selen, UIUC Physics

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M. Selen, UIUC Physics Why exams are a sensitive issue Hand graded versus multiple choice. How we do it in the intro Physics courses. What is the cost? – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Problem with Exams M. Selen, UIUC Physics


1
The Problem with ExamsM. Selen, UIUC Physics
  • Why exams are a sensitive issue
  • Hand graded versus multiple choice.
  • How we do it in the intro Physics courses.
  • What is the cost?

2
  • Exams typically represent gt 50 of the final
    course grade.
  • Students really focus on exams (perhaps too
    much).
  • Any perceived problems (real or imagined) will
    generate enormous resentment.
  • Faculty often dont focus on exams.
  • Doing it right is time consuming, in particular
    of you are working alone.
  • Fairness is not a trivial issue.
  • Exam content.
  • Grading.

3
Hand Graded vs. Multiple Choice
  • Hand Grading (what we used to do)
  • PROS
  • Students feel like everything they write is taken
    into account (i.e. partial credit).
  • Any mistakes in the exam can be adapted to (exam
    is more forgiving to the professorless quality
    control is needed).
  • CONS
  • Hard to make grading fair consistent.
  • TA, Handwriting, time, before/after pizza etc..
  • Whiners are rewarded (i.e. re-grades).

4
  • Multiple Choice (what we do now)
  • PROS
  • Uniform Fair. Everyone is treated exactly the
    same.
  • Fixing a bug in a problem help everyone.
  • Lends itself to electronic publishing.
  • WEB interface possible for practice (before exam
    night) and help/explanations (after exam).
  • Very useful for analysis.
  • tracking changes, education research, exam
    problem quality control, problem bank etc.
  • CONS
  • Harder to give partial credit (but not
    impossible).
  • More care is needed when preparing exam.
  • Considered inferior by some (mostly faculty).

5
About 1/3 of exam score is conceptual(2 3
choice)
Quantitative problems(5-choice) allow students
to select up to 3 answers. Partial credit !
Conceptual and quantitative problems are often
paired.
6
  • Analysis of exam data is very interesting (and
    useful for education research).

Physics 101 Midterm Exam 1, Spring 2000
7
More sophisticated analyses can be used to rate
the effectiveness of each exam questions
8
We can look at the discriminating power of each
problem
We can learn, quantitatively, how to build better
exams.
9
Instant exam feedback is possible
  • The minute they leave the exam, students can go
    on the web, enter their answers into a web
    version of the exam they just took, and see what
    their raw score is
  • After the exam has been graded (next day)
    students can find detailed statistics on each
    problem on the web.

Students LOVE this !
10
The Cost (is it more work?)
  • These courses are team-taught.
  • Typically 3 faculty
  • Lecturer, Discussion director, Lab director
  • The team course works together to produce exam.
  • The subject material is divided up and each
    faculty submits a set of problems.
  • Old problems can be used for guidance.
  • Format is fixed (MS word in our case).
  • One of the faculty is in charge of assembling
    exam (secretarial staff can help).
  • The team meets several times to discuss iterate
    the problems until the final draft is ready.
  • A senior TA works the exam out and provides
    comments on difficulty, length etc.
  • Three version of exam are produced by scrambling
    the order of the problems.
  • Secretaries do this.
  • After the exam, OIR machine reads the scantron
    forms and gives us the raw data. We have
    scripts that do the final analysis to yield
    grades etc.

11
  • We are getting good at this. Exam averages are
    consistently 70-75.
  • Curving is unusual.
  • We never curve down.
  • We can honestly tell students that they are not
    competing against each-other.
  • Everyone could, in principle, get an A in
    Physics 11x.
  • This is a great motivator.
  • We can tell students on the first day of the
    semester what final semester score they need to
    get the various letter grades
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