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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31 Number 2. March 12, 1968

Exams Useful in Theory

Exams Useful in Theory

And yet examinations may in theory serve a variety of useful purposes. They may be used (1) as a means of instruction; (2) as a form of educational administation; (3) for purposes of admission to various occupations, professions and government service; and (4) as a means of social control. They serve the backward-looking function of assessing the student's attainments, and the forward-looking one of assessing his aptitudes, whether for job-placement or for further education. Properly-constructed tests can pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, suggest alterations in course content or teaching methods, and safeguard standards for admission to the professions.

What is surprising is that the traditional essay-type examination should continue to be so popular, when it serves these purposes so poorly.

Those who support traditional examinations have, however, always attributed to them a high educational value. Preparation for examinations, it is said, trains students to deal with new material, to discriminate between the important and the unimportant, to appreciate the relevance of hitherto unrelated details, to grasp a subject as a whole and to combine its parts into a vital organic unity, to hold knowledge ready on demand, to think for themselves. Through examinations, it is held, the teacher obtains an impartial estimate of what a student knows, and the student discovers what he has really mastered. The timid student acquires confidence and the conceited student gains humility.

These arguments are not new; they are taken from an article in the Educational Review of 1900. But I doubt that any stronger could be proposed today. They are, if anything, less adequate now than they were then. Preparation for examinations, as we all know, encourages cramming, rote learning, and meaningless mnemonics.

Original thinking, individual emphasis, the ''brilliant new synthesis" are all impossible — only hackneyed thoughts may be expressed, if only because the time limit prevents the development of an adequate justification for a novel idea.

The timid student finds to his surprise that the desired level of mediocrity is not difficult to attain, and the proud student finds to his dismay that intellect goes unrewarded.

In my own experience, those who are most successful at examinations are often their sharpest critics. It may be, as G. L. Brook has claimed, that anxiety about examinations is strongest among the very best students, "since they know that their opportunity of pursuing a life-time of study as university teachers or researchers is likely to depend more than anything on the quality of their degree." Or, on the other hand, it may be that the best students realise the full extent of the intellectual prostitution required.

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Besides, in the roulette of unreliable examinations, the marks of the A-grade student can only fluctuate in one direction — downward.

Even rather tepid supporters of the essay-type examination, such as Brook, admit that the usual type of paper, asking for answers to four or five questions in three hours, tests a very specialised kind of ability and puts a premium on speed and superficiality. It limits the student to one mode of expression, and often provides a more sensitive measure of writing speed and resistance to anxiety than of educational attainment.

It was recognised as early as 1891 (if not before) that the examination, is used as the sole criterion of success, is an unmitigated evil. Superintendent E. E. White, in a U.S. Bureau of Education circular published in 1891, argued that the widespread use of examinations "has narrowed and grooved instruction, encouraged the use of mechanical and rote methods, and occasioned cramming and vicious habits of study."

It came to be understood very early (although obviously not in New Zealand) that the best study is done where there is the freest play of motives and of natural curiosity; and the worst study where there is the most absorbing interest in examination marks, leading to overpressure, strain, waste, dishonesty and mis-education.

A more modern criticism is given by the sociologist Peter Marris, who interviewed students and staff at several British universities:

"Examinations unquestionably do great harm, at all levels of education. They alienate the student from his personal interest in the subject he studies, rob him of initiative, and encourage whatever kind of learning is easiest to test, irrespective of its relevance. Original work is discouraged, because it is difficult to mark: original interest, because it upsets the curriculum. The teacher's role is confused with that of assessor, and the student is inhibited from seeking guidance for fear of being judged."