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Subject: Provocative Thoughts

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Tony Gardner-Medwin
Posts: 14
30/05/2007 18:09  
Is anyone interested in challenging (or even supporting) some of the deliberately provocative ideas we raised in our paper? If you want to, it might be good to make them into individual new topics in this forum.

IDEAS WE AGREE WITH:
1. Objective testing need NOT simply test factual knowledge and encourage rote learning.
2. Objective testing is for some (not all) purposes BETTER assessment than essays or problems.
3. The notion that you should use 'modern' question formats like single-best-answer or extended matching questions rather than 'outdated' True/False questions is often generalised far beyond any valid supporting evidence we know of. T/F questions are often BEST PRACTICE.
4. It is (common) BAD PRACTICE to include a 'Don't Know' option with T/F or Best-Option Qs.

IDEAS WE DON'T AGREE WITH:
5. All forms of negative marking are de-motivating to students. You must use carrots, not sticks.
6. Objective testing has no place in subjects like social science or psychology
7. True/False questions are harder to write than Multi-Choice questions
8. A uniform question type in exams should be used, to avoid confusing students

Jane MacKenzie
Posts: 10
31/05/2007 14:38  
Hi Tony, I'll pick up one of your provocative thoughts. You say: "4. It is (common) BAD PRACTICE to include a 'Don't Know' option with T/F or Best-Option Qs." Could you elaborate cos I just don't see why?

Jane
Tony Gardner-Medwin
Posts: 14
31/05/2007 17:35  
Fair enough! Some of these points are actually covered in slides from a recent Physiological Soc presentation* that you can see at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgbarg/tea/UCL06_tw_ppt.pdf . I'll answer your "don't know" point in a separate topic.

Thanks incidentally for your many stimulating contributions. It's great to get these kinds of questions, even though I'm not always sure I can handle them very well. Too many staff just decline to enter into debate about assessment or teaching.
Tony

* Gardner-Medwin AR, Curtin NA (2006). Certainty-based marking at UCL and Imperial College. Physiological Society Teaching Workshop, Proc Physiol Soc series. , 3, WA4
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