{"id":7847,"date":"2024-10-13T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2024-10-13T13:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=7847"},"modified":"2024-10-08T09:35:12","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T14:35:12","slug":"the-great-exam-debate-a-conversation-with-a-colleague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/the-great-exam-debate-a-conversation-with-a-colleague\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Exam Debate: A Conversation with a Colleague"},"content":{"rendered":"

A colleague recently reached out to ask me about research into the benefits and perils of final exams<\/strong> in high school. Her question inspired a fun exploration of research on the topic; I thought it would be helpful to share both our conclusions and our process<\/em> with you.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Before I dig into our discussion, it might be helpful to pause and ask yourself this question: \u201cdo I already have a firm opinion about final exams?\u201d<\/p>\n

That is: do you believe that exams provide much-needed accountability and a chance for meaningful accomplishment? Do you believe they subtract valuable instruction time and add needless academic stress? Your prior beliefs will shape the way you read the upcoming post, so you\u2019ll probably learn more if you recognize your own preconceptions.<\/p>\n

With this first step in place, let\u2019s explore\u2026<\/p>\n

Not as Easy as it Looks<\/h2>\n

Our conversation started with a frank admission: it would be INCREDIBLY difficult to investigate this question directly.<\/p>\n

To do so, we\u2019d need to teach two identical courses \u2013 one of which does have a final exam, and the other of which does not.<\/p>\n

This proposal, however, quickly becomes impossible.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say that one section of my English class has a cumulative final exam<\/em>, and the other has a cumulative final project<\/em>. The differences between an exam and a project require all sorts of other changes to the course\u2026so the two experiences wouldn\u2019t be similar enough to compare as apples and apples.<\/p>\n

Almost any other attempt to answer questions about final exams directly leads to similar problems.<\/p>\n

This realization might discourage those of us who regularly turn to research. At the same time, it forces us to rethink our question quite usefully.<\/p>\n

Instead of asking:<\/p>\n

\u201cAre final exams good or bad?\u201d<\/p>\n

We can ask:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think about a year-long learning experience, how can we conclude those months most helpfully? What set of cognitive experiences consolidates learning most effectively? And: how does the answer to that question depend on the specific context of my school?\u201d<\/p>\n

With that framework in mind, let\u2019s get started\u2026<\/p>\n

Old Friends<\/h2>\n

Longtime readers know that I rely on several websites to launch my research journeys. In this case, my colleague and I started at elicit.org. I put in this question:<\/p>\n

\u201cDo final exams in high school benefit or harm learning?\u201d<\/p>\n

The results from this search highlight the complexity of the question.<\/p>\n

This paper<\/a> by Khanna et al argues that cumulative<\/em> final exams benefit students more than non-cumulative exams; these benefits appear both in the short term \u2013 immediately after the exam \u2013 and up to 18 months later. (Technically speaking, 18 months is a LONG TIME.)<\/p>\n

When I checked out that study on my two other go-to websites (connectedpapers.com, scite.ai), I found other papers that, roughly speaking, arrived at the same conclusion. Strikingly, those other papers suggested that cumulative exams especially benefit either struggling students, or students with less prior knowledge.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, back at my elicit.org search, this study<\/a> by Holme et al produces this bleak conclusion:<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh school exit exams have produced few expected benefits and been associated with costs for disadvantaged students.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A quick search on connectedpapers.com finds that \u2013 sure enough \u2013 other researchers have reached roughly similar conclusions.<\/p>\n

\u201cPromising Principles\u201d<\/h2>\n

As expected, our review of existing research shows the difficulty of answering this final-exam question directly.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s try a different strategy: returning to our reformulated question:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think about a year-long learning experience, how can we conclude those months most helpfully? What set of cognitive experiences consolidates learning most effectively?\u201d<\/p>\n

Two Learning and the Brain stalwarts \u2013 David Daniel and John Almarode \u2013 often invite teachers to think about cognitive science not as rules to obey (\u201cdo this\u201d), but as \u201cpromising principles\u201d that guide our work (\u201cthink about this, then decide what to do\u201d).<\/p>\n

So: do we have any promising principles that might guide our question about final exams? Indeed we do!<\/p>\n

This blog has written about spacing, interleaving, <\/strong>and retrieval practice <\/strong>so often that there\u2019s no need to rehash those ideas in this post. And, it\u2019s easy to see how to apply these promising principles to cumulative final exams. After all, such exams\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 almost REQUIRE spacing,<\/p>\n

\u2026 almost REQUIRE interleaving,<\/p>\n

\u2026 create MANY opportunities for retrieval practice.<\/p>\n

Of course, almost anything can be done badly \u2013 and preparation for final exams is no exception. But \u2013 done well<\/em> \u2013 final exams invite exactly the kind of desirable difficulty that cognitive science champions.<\/p>\n

Slam Dunk?<\/h2>\n

Perhaps, then, we have answered my colleague\u2019s question: schools should\u2014no, schools MUST\u2014use cumulative final exams to enact cognitive science principles.<\/p>\n

…Insert sound of record scratch…<\/p>\n

That statement overlooks the second part of the revised question above:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat set of cognitive experiences consolidates learning most effectively? And: how does the answer to that question depend on the specific context of my school<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

In this case, my colleague works at a school that champions a progressive educational philosophy<\/em>. In other words, final exams sound like a terrible idea.<\/p>\n

Her school has long favored cumulative capstone projects. And even a cursory discussion makes it clear that such projects \u2013 like cumulative final exams \u2013 invite spacing, interleaving, and retrieval.<\/p>\n

(Yes, yes: capstone projects can be designed very badly. So can final exams. Both can also be done well.)<\/p>\n

As long as those capstone projects deliberately and thoughtfully enact all those promising desirably difficult principles, they too can consolidate a year\u2019s worth of learning.<\/p>\n

TL; DR<\/h2>\n

My collegial conversation suggests that cognitive science research neither forbids nor requires final exams.<\/p>\n

Instead, that research gives us ways to think about the summary work that we do with students. We can adapt these promising principles to align with our own school philosophy. That conceptual combination \u2013 more than a specific research study \u2013 will guide us most wisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A colleague recently reached out to ask me about research into the benefits and perils of final exams in high school. Her question inspired a fun exploration of research on the topic; I thought it would be helpful to share both our conclusions and our process with you. Before I dig into our discussion, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[229],"class_list":["post-7847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-final-exams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7847"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7856,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7847\/revisions\/7856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}