New Faculty Teaching Newsletter # 25 (April 11, 2007)

Final Exams

A common complaint from students is that final exams do not always test the kinds of knowledge that is asked for in homework or quizzes or presented in lectures. Whether this perception is accurate or not, it's still an excellent starting point for talking about what you are testing when you give a final exam. The worst final exams can seem unfocused, determined to test everything, or random things. The best final exams are learning moments.

If you presented a set of learning goals and objectives to your students on your syllabus, you're way ahead of the game, because that means you've thought through what is important to you for a particular class. The very simplest procedure then is to develop an exam that will demonstrate whether students have achieved these objectives. For a fascinating list of objectives developed for each department or college in an entire university, see San Diego State University's "Best Practices: Department Learning Goals and Objectives" [pdf].

For example, at San Diego State, the Biology Department's Goal 2 is "Explain the process of natural selection and how it contributes to the formation of species and biodiversity." Under that goal are three objectives:
"Objective 2.1 Compare the modes of sorting for biological variation, including natural selection, random drift and sexual selection.
Objective 2.2 Explain how genes, chromosomes and alleles are related to one another, and compare their roles in the transmission of genetic information.
Objective 2.3 Propose one or more hypotheses that plausibly suggest mechanisms for changing gene frequencies within and among populations."

Objectives 2.2 and 2.3 seem to lend themselves to fairly straightforward exam questions. The nice twist here is that 2.2 can be handled as a short answer with bullets, perhaps, while 2.3 could be an essay. By using different testing methods, you are allowing more students to do their best, since everyone has individual preferences for the kind of exam-essay, multiple choice, etc.

But if you haven't laid out things so clearly (picture a smiley face emoticon here) there is still hope. Here are some general suggestions.

1. Spend some time now reviewing what you've covered this semester and--very important--why you've covered it. Then rank the material into three categories: "vital," "nice to know," "can get by without." Most exams will not ever get past the "vital" category.

2. Decide how to best test the "vital" material. For this, you may want to refer to Bloom's Taxonomy (Newsletter # 18). Are you testing simple recall? Analysis? Application? Synthesis? There are key words that signal each of these tasks.

3. If you are testing large numbers of students, don't think that you are only able to test facts or recall. There are creative ways of using computer-scored exams to elicit all kinds of knowledge. For some examples (and a lot of other vital information on exams), see Chapter 28 of Barbara Davis's "Tools for Teaching."

4. As you develop questions, you might consider soliciting exam questions from your students. The two major benefits of this are that it tells you what they think is important/interesting and it gets them to think about the course as a whole.

5. When you're done with a draft of the exam, take the exam and time yourself. If you can, ask someone else to take it, too. Often, you will find that instructions that are perfectly clear to you are not so clear to someone else.

6. Consider the layout of the exam. For instance, often with essay questions, we blend what we intend to be helpful background with the question itself, and students have to hunt for the question. So, simply put the background in one paragraph, and label it as such. Then the question on a separate line. Again, in an essay question, try to focus yourself on what you want. If you ask too many questions, you'll not get a coherent essay, but a series of answers to those questions. For more suggestions on designing effective writing assignments (including essay exams) see page 10 of "Encouraging Student Writing" [pdf].

7. Beware of some dangerous words: "discuss," "analyze," and "explain." In some fields and for some faculty, these have very specific meanings that have been clearly conveyed to students. In many instances, however, we use these interchangeably, and really just mean "do something substantial withŠ" So think before you use. And here's a personal favorite: "compare and contrast." The danger here is that you're really asking for a list-which is fine if that's what you want. But for an essay question, we're missing a "why?" that is, "what is the point of making the comparison?"

8. Closer to the final exam time, discuss the exam with your students, letting them know the kinds of questions you'll be asking and why.

9. After the exams have been graded, do a quick analysis of the questions and responses. Are there some that generated more incorrect or less successful responses than you expected? Make changes and note suggestions now, for next year. Do it while the exam is fresh in your mind.

If you'd like someone to review your exam with you, contact me.

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Campus Tour of the week: Campus Sculpture

• The Smilodon, the sabre-tooth cat, sculpted by "Trader" Vic Bergeron (yeah, that guy) is on the plaza of McCone Hall-the sculpture is currently hidden by a construction shack, but is still there and visit-able.
• The Last Dryad, the most romantic sculpture on campus, is by Strawberry Creek in Faculty Glade.
• On the south side of the Campanile you'll find a bust of Abraham Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum who also created Mount Rushmore. He created numerous Lincoln busts and named his son "Lincoln."
• As you walk to campus from BART, you'll find football sculpture near VLSB (Valley Life Scienes Building). Tilden, who was blind, also created a number of sculptures in San Francisco.
• The bas reliefs on Sather Gate. As best as anyone can remember, when they were first put in (in 1910), they were thought by some to be obscene, perhaps even by Jane Sather who had donated the gate in honor of her husband. In any case, they were taken down shortly after they were installed. Two of them were found years later near an Oakland cemetery. Others were recovered from storage at Edwards Track. The eight panels were only re-installed in the early 1980s.