The Not-Open-Ended Solution to Testing
Bob takes a standardized test in a room with 30 other students. Everyone is silent, bubbling in answers for 3 hours straight. Bob is sitting at his own desk with a Scantron answer sheet and test booklet. He has prepared for this test an hour a day for the last few months. A month later, results come back and Bob finds out he failed. He becomes very stressed and begins to hate school because of testing. He skips school the next day.
This could be the story of a high school student. An average high school student in the US will take over 35 mandated tests over their 4 years. Research has found that standardized testing is not an effective system. Made to fail a certain amount of students (Strauss) and not teaching anything, testing is a big reason why school is despised. Testing creates unnecessary stress and affects parts of the brain that deal with cognitive ability (Edelstein). We can …show more content…
In an interview with Mr. Gordon, a teacher at Poolesville High School, he says that multiple choice tests are probably the worst kind. There is no partial credit for trying and applying knowledge. Multiple choice questions are also hard to give feedback for, as you cannot see the student’s thinking. Testing can improve learning, but not when it is like this. There is no constructive feedback and no motivation to actually learn the information. People say that testing is important to collect data on the “best and brightest”, but the multiple choice questions used do not allow you to get this type of data. What colleges should look for are problem solving and critical thinking skills. This can only be achieved by using open-ended questions that spark thinking (Barth and
Bob takes a standardized test in a room with 30 other students. Everyone is silent, bubbling in answers for 3 hours straight. Bob is sitting at his own desk with a Scantron answer sheet and test booklet. He has prepared for this test an hour a day for the last few months. A month later, results come back and Bob finds out he failed. He becomes very stressed and begins to hate school because of testing. He skips school the next day.
This could be the story of a high school student. An average high school student in the US will take over 35 mandated tests over their 4 years. Research has found that standardized testing is not an effective system. Made to fail a certain amount of students (Strauss) and not teaching anything, testing is a big reason why school is despised. Testing creates unnecessary stress and affects parts of the brain that deal with cognitive ability (Edelstein). We can …show more content…
In an interview with Mr. Gordon, a teacher at Poolesville High School, he says that multiple choice tests are probably the worst kind. There is no partial credit for trying and applying knowledge. Multiple choice questions are also hard to give feedback for, as you cannot see the student’s thinking. Testing can improve learning, but not when it is like this. There is no constructive feedback and no motivation to actually learn the information. People say that testing is important to collect data on the “best and brightest”, but the multiple choice questions used do not allow you to get this type of data. What colleges should look for are problem solving and critical thinking skills. This can only be achieved by using open-ended questions that spark thinking (Barth and