DescriptionThe following is an opportunity to gain up to 20 extra credit points. Many of you have shown concern over your scores for the tests in this course. That leads to a question about the efficacy and usefulness of tests in courses such as this one, which is NOT intended to test students for compliance to meet standards established to protect the overall population, such as for a CPA exam or various boards in the health care field. In courses such as this one, where the student’s learning of the subject is the primary goal, the question to think critically about is: Do tests and quizzes have a useful role in increasing a student’s learning at the university level? According to Busteed (2019), “College is about both preparing people for a job (and helping them advance their careers and earnings) and to thrive in their overall lives.” As a student, it is expected that you learn much in the courses that you take to reach your objectives and that your instructors aid and support your learning as much as possible. So, do tests and quizzes help or hinder these goals? Boser (2015) states that testing increases the student’s learning which would lead one to argue that tests in a course are beneficial to the learning process. Malamed (2019) says that, although the intent of a test is to measure the knowledge the learner has committed to long-term memory, tests often do not meet this goal. Perhaps even if the test is constructed to meet this goal, students may experience test anxiety that may get in the way. Please think critically about the value of tests. The following are questions to get you thinking and not intended to be answered individually: How do tests and quizzes contribute to or detract from your learning as a student? Does the effort to prepare for and take tests and quizzes add to your goals as a student generally and increase your learning of the subject of the course? What do you learn if anything from the effort of preparing for and taking tests? If you were in a class that did not have any quizzes or tests, what level of learning do you think you would take away from it? What other types of assignments, if any, would you think would increase your learning of the subject matter more than activities related to tests and quizzes? And how would your instructor know that you have mastered the course objectives if a test was not part of the course?Although your opinion is a part of this activity, please also look for input from others on the subject, both that may agree with what you think about the value of quizzes and tests and those that disagree with your view. As usual for this course, there is no right or wrong answer. The magic is in the thought process you use to come to your position. For full credit, your submittal should be well organized with your position clearly stated. It should be least one page. After you have thought this through, your opinion is central to this assignment. But please search out input from at least one other source and give credit to that source. Your source(s) can be from a discussion with someone, from a website on the internet, journal articles, etc. Scholarly articles are not required for this activity but of course are always appropriate. No points will be deducted for formatting of reference(s) and citation(s). I’m just asking you to credit your source(s), as I have tried to model in the references and citations here. ReplyForward
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