Is written examination the best way of assessing students ?
What do you have to say with your experience over the years?
Anthony Baidoo, UENR-Ghana
I think not just this way, you can test them by oral way
Regards
Maytham
Yes. We also use oral examinations and have discovered that students tend to panic a lot with this method of examination
Although other methods such as continual assessment, projects, and oral assessment have various benefits, the written examination seems to be the base of assessing as all students are tested under similar conditions without cheating. In applied science, a mixture of different methods can be used for assessing.
I definitely support written examination along with oral examination for 50% marks at each section.
Thanks.
Not all the time. You need to make a mix between the traditional methods of written assessment and other new trends such as alternative assessment techniques.
Liqaa
this link is useful
http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-school-exams-be-replaced-with-different-ways-of-assessing-skills-and-knowledge
regards
The oral, written examination and the discussions during the lecture are the best ways to evaluate the student.
The written examination system that is prevalent in the world is not at all the right methodology of assessing the students. They are assessed theoretically. Don't you think they need to understand practical aspects of the theory?
Such system drives students to refer to few years question papers and decide important questions , prepare them well and get good marks!! Is this that teachers want? No we want our students to be sharp and should have outcome based learning. The existing system can not bring outcome based learning. Such system have many more demerits.
Examination aims at assessing the learning outcomes of students to find out whether holistic learning has taken place. Written examination is a way of evaluating an aspect of the learning. I think oral knowledge (best assessed through oral presentations) and the application of the learned concepts through practical activities should form part of examinations to give a holistic picture of the learning outcomes of students.
For a good assessment, I will prefer written, practical and viva (oral). Only written examination is not enough.
No. The written exam is just one of the variants or modalities of evaluation. Generally it measures part of the knowledge acquired or developed during a course or educational process, but very biased to the exercise of memory.
We must also assess the ability to apply theoretical knowledge in the field of reality.
On the other hand it is essential to evaluate psychomotor skills or abilities, through analog practices (in the classroom) or equivalent practices (in reality)
In short, the written exam on paper or digital format is required, the oral examination with the exposition of their knowledge in a didactic way and ordered following the dialectical method, with argumentation of thesis and antithesis, to reach conclusions and with it, new knowledge . Without forgetting the original thought, the critical reading of texts and contexts; and the application and innovation of scientific and technological knowledge, in the social reality.
Definitely not.
It cannot assess all the levels of knowledge. Its good method to assess knowledge and not application to a great extent. It must be combined with skill based assessment.
Thank you
In my perception written exams are just checking the memory of the students except open book exams. I believe that practical sessions can measure in-depth Knowledge,Ability, Attitude and Aptitude of the students .
It all depends. If you are getting your PhD in the USA you are required to do both. I believe it is always best to have both oral and written exams when dealing with research.
It depends on what is being assessed, if you are training a pilot, certainly exams may be required, but the other important facets of assessment will be practical in the form of actually flying a plane. Hence, practicals are an important part of assessment depending on what is being assessed, simulations may form part of alternative assessment methods.
I sincerely appreciate all your rich inputs to this discourse. I find them very refreshing. Thank you all !
Regards
Anthony Baidoo
Yes it is a good method, but should not carry as much weight as most institutions give them over other assessment methods (Combined). To me, ratios of written examinations to other assessment methods better be 1:1 or 2:3 (I have no statistical model for that on me). Oral examinations should also find a comfortable permanent place in institutions of higher learning (Bias can be dealt with by use of a pannel) .
First, writen assessment could include both questions related to information and questions related to critical and creative thinking of the student. For long life learning, assessment might also include lab reports, individual projects, team work activities and indutsrial reports. We all these, we are assessing many aspects of the student learning process.
There is no good or bad method of evaluating students' performance (The reality we must face). Before you decide on whether written examination or any other methods, ask yourself "what is the objective of evaluating my students?" Probably when you answer this right, you would be able to justify why choose evaluation method 'A', 'B', 'C', etc or a combination of methods. Most often, I have seen in University manuals stating the type of evaluation method lecturers would use to assess students at the end of a course. This way, you may have to abide by what is stated.
Personally, I always talked about using Bloom's Taxonomy to think through what evaluation methods to use for student assessment by lecturers. Going through this very well, one could see that a mixture of evaluation methods is very important. The use of mixed evaluation methods such as debates, field trips, observation, written examinations, etc help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of all students by evaluating the various aspects of knowledge acquisition with the help of mixed evaluation methods. Let us not forget about the pros and cons of using all the methods mentioned. Some evaluation methods need certain infrastructure in place and once you do not have such infrastructure, you cannot use them. Student numbers also count in determining the evaluation methods.
I stand for using complementary evaluation methods.
Thank you.
No it is not, there are too many factors that can affect an individual from been at its best during a written examination. I think other evaluating methods should be employed.
Written with oral examination is the best way of assessing students
Empirical case study with the affiliation of industry can be a creative and effective method of performance assessment.
Certainly not. You may in addition, use oral continous assessment (quizes, tests and asignments), (viva-voce), practical assessments
I trust that in spite of the fact that these sorts of evaluations have a key point in our training framework, there are different kinds of examinations which would enhance the instructive framework.
Regardless, these sorts of appraisals are not ready to gauge a wide range of gifts in understudies. This is credited to the way that a horde of different capacities exist which can't be evaluates by a solitary exam toward the finish of the semester, for example, collaboration or administration. Keeping in mind the end goal to enhance and survey these aptitudes, pedantic and additionally recreational exercises ought to be directed to evaluate these abilities of understudies amid the semester, and give the general public more handy graduated understudies.
Also, the evaluation of understudies amid the semester would diminish the measure of weight on understudies amid an exam. They would be more casual if realizing that this single exam would not decide their goal, and furthermore it would be all the more reasonable for them since in the old framework if an understudy becomes ill at the season of the exam, there won't be some other shots for him to get the required score.
To restate, I firmly am of the supposition that the old techniques for formal evaluations with composed examinations would not be an ideal method for appraisal.
regards
I think there are always advantages and disadvantages for every assessment method. A good triangulation is the key - the students should write, do and say evidence.
Indeed, written examination is one of the best way of assessing students performance as this has an evidence to support while other examination pattern such as viva voce, assignment and oral presentation has a high degree of favoritism or bias.
Agree with Dr Syed Asdaq's point of view. The quality of Written examination is not just answering the question but also expressing answer in you own view point.
I think in scientific disiplined written exams should be structured as possible,to allow testing higher levels of knowledge.
it depends on the domain of learning you are intending to assess and the tool of assessment used
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