in which julie rants
before i send off my fiery epistle to the (admittedly, the wrong target of my anger) TA of my psych class, i thought i would turn to gool ol' livejournal for a good old-fashioned rant.
this class is biopsychology, and it is ridiculously hard for a 200-level class. we had a midterm on the last day of classes (i know), and we have a final in two days. the grade for the midterm has just been posted and i'd like to be able to see my exam before i go off to write a final on the same material. we've been able to view our other two midterms, so i sent an email to the TA asking if i could come by during office hours today to look at my midterm. her reply was "Julie, As you know, there is no viewing for the third exam. Good-bye."
firstly, no, i did not know that, and secondly, what the fuck? the class average for the third midterm was 58%. that means a lot of fucking questions got answered wrong. i got a 78%, which is pretty decent according to the curve, but is still a lot of fucking questions wrong. and now they are asking me to write the final ON THE SAME MATERIAL, being unaware of the mistakes i have made and unable to fix them? excuse me, is that learning? or is it "let's try as hard as we can to trip students up."
i've had a problem with this course since the start, due to this very mentality. the prof doesn't give a shit about what the students have learned. it's like he designs the exams for the sole purpose of tripping us up. i'm a fifth year student and i know what constitutes a good exam, and what constitutes a bad one. i'm not just pissed because it's hard. the questions are stupid. they do not provide an accurate reflection of how well one knows the course material. they are designed to make you do poorly.
at the beginning of the course, they syllabus had this huge caveat: "Beware that some students find the breadth and depth of this course far more challenging than other psych courses. The class average is typically very low." it's true the course material is challenging and there's a lot to know. but the reason the average is so goddamn low is because the exams are stupid. you can study as much as you want - the exams are primarily a test of how well you can figure out the prof's mind games. you look at a question, and you're like "i reviewed these neural pathways for 4 hours, i could teach a class on these goddamn neural pathways, but i don't know the answer. it know it's b) but it COULD be b) AND c), in which the case the answer would be e) "b and c." the textbook NOR the lectures mentioned anything about c), but it sounds like it's probably right, simply because the answer e) EXISTS, and i think the prof is throwing this in her for the sole purpose of making me get it wrong, so i'll answer e)." and then when i get home and look up the material in the text, and no, there is nothing in it to indicare that the answer should be e), but i get it right somehow anyways.
sigh. my linguistics final the other day actually had a page at the very end where you could justify any of your answers, or say "i thought this would be tested and it wasn't" and the pose and answer your own questions. (it's kind of a bonus question - you couldn't hinder your mark, but you could improve it). now THAT is an accurate reflection of learning. it accounts for professor error (like, the prof designed a poor exam and didn't have any questions on one section that should have been important, so you can demonstrate your knowledge on this section) and it also shows how much of the material you know. maybe you know most of the material, but there is just that one section you're unclear of - but on multiple choice you get the mark wrong because it's all or none. but in this case, you can demonstrate your knowledge and even though you didn't quite get it right, you do know a lot and maybe deserve an extra half mark. and also, i found that as i was justifying one of the answers i was unsure of, through that very process i discovered that i was totally right. it could work the other way too - you discover that it's wrong, and go back to change your answer.
in my psych class on learning, even the prof, who uses multiple choice exams, totally dissed them, citing studies that show they are simply not an accurate reflection of learning. what is better are multiple choice exams that are designed like a "scatch and win" ticket - you scratch in your first choice, and if it says it's wrong, you get to try again. you'll only get 0.25 of a mark if your next answer is right, but that's better than zero, and there is so much more learning if students see right away what they got right or wrong.
which brings me back to the exam viewing problem. i'm not campaigning for a change in the exam system - i know that multiple choice is a necessary evil because it is easy and cheap, and most universities don't have the time and resources to read student's justifications or buy expensive scratch test sheets. (my linguistcs prof is a rare soul, choosing to donate hours of his own time marking exams and reading student's justifications just because he really cares about learning. the class isn't small - 60 people - and he doesn't even have a full-time TA, so it's really quite an impressive committment to students). all i want is to see my goddamn multiple choice exam so i can know what questions i got wrong, and resolve to learn those sections better so i don't make the same mistakes twice. is that too much to ask? i certainly think not.
this class is biopsychology, and it is ridiculously hard for a 200-level class. we had a midterm on the last day of classes (i know), and we have a final in two days. the grade for the midterm has just been posted and i'd like to be able to see my exam before i go off to write a final on the same material. we've been able to view our other two midterms, so i sent an email to the TA asking if i could come by during office hours today to look at my midterm. her reply was "Julie, As you know, there is no viewing for the third exam. Good-bye."
firstly, no, i did not know that, and secondly, what the fuck? the class average for the third midterm was 58%. that means a lot of fucking questions got answered wrong. i got a 78%, which is pretty decent according to the curve, but is still a lot of fucking questions wrong. and now they are asking me to write the final ON THE SAME MATERIAL, being unaware of the mistakes i have made and unable to fix them? excuse me, is that learning? or is it "let's try as hard as we can to trip students up."
i've had a problem with this course since the start, due to this very mentality. the prof doesn't give a shit about what the students have learned. it's like he designs the exams for the sole purpose of tripping us up. i'm a fifth year student and i know what constitutes a good exam, and what constitutes a bad one. i'm not just pissed because it's hard. the questions are stupid. they do not provide an accurate reflection of how well one knows the course material. they are designed to make you do poorly.
at the beginning of the course, they syllabus had this huge caveat: "Beware that some students find the breadth and depth of this course far more challenging than other psych courses. The class average is typically very low." it's true the course material is challenging and there's a lot to know. but the reason the average is so goddamn low is because the exams are stupid. you can study as much as you want - the exams are primarily a test of how well you can figure out the prof's mind games. you look at a question, and you're like "i reviewed these neural pathways for 4 hours, i could teach a class on these goddamn neural pathways, but i don't know the answer. it know it's b) but it COULD be b) AND c), in which the case the answer would be e) "b and c." the textbook NOR the lectures mentioned anything about c), but it sounds like it's probably right, simply because the answer e) EXISTS, and i think the prof is throwing this in her for the sole purpose of making me get it wrong, so i'll answer e)." and then when i get home and look up the material in the text, and no, there is nothing in it to indicare that the answer should be e), but i get it right somehow anyways.
sigh. my linguistics final the other day actually had a page at the very end where you could justify any of your answers, or say "i thought this would be tested and it wasn't" and the pose and answer your own questions. (it's kind of a bonus question - you couldn't hinder your mark, but you could improve it). now THAT is an accurate reflection of learning. it accounts for professor error (like, the prof designed a poor exam and didn't have any questions on one section that should have been important, so you can demonstrate your knowledge on this section) and it also shows how much of the material you know. maybe you know most of the material, but there is just that one section you're unclear of - but on multiple choice you get the mark wrong because it's all or none. but in this case, you can demonstrate your knowledge and even though you didn't quite get it right, you do know a lot and maybe deserve an extra half mark. and also, i found that as i was justifying one of the answers i was unsure of, through that very process i discovered that i was totally right. it could work the other way too - you discover that it's wrong, and go back to change your answer.
in my psych class on learning, even the prof, who uses multiple choice exams, totally dissed them, citing studies that show they are simply not an accurate reflection of learning. what is better are multiple choice exams that are designed like a "scatch and win" ticket - you scratch in your first choice, and if it says it's wrong, you get to try again. you'll only get 0.25 of a mark if your next answer is right, but that's better than zero, and there is so much more learning if students see right away what they got right or wrong.
which brings me back to the exam viewing problem. i'm not campaigning for a change in the exam system - i know that multiple choice is a necessary evil because it is easy and cheap, and most universities don't have the time and resources to read student's justifications or buy expensive scratch test sheets. (my linguistcs prof is a rare soul, choosing to donate hours of his own time marking exams and reading student's justifications just because he really cares about learning. the class isn't small - 60 people - and he doesn't even have a full-time TA, so it's really quite an impressive committment to students). all i want is to see my goddamn multiple choice exam so i can know what questions i got wrong, and resolve to learn those sections better so i don't make the same mistakes twice. is that too much to ask? i certainly think not.