I am in "education" and most times students are assessed thru 100% course work assignments. Nevertheless, we may use short quizzes (multiple choice) as formative assessments to guage students' understanding of concepts etc. before moving further in a module of the course. The course work assignments include projects, e-portfolios, and written essays.

Best regards,

Debra

In Italy for the majority of the courses (both undergraduate and master) there is a combo between a written assignment and an oral colloquium. I studied engineering and physics and so the written assignments were made of a number of problems to solve.

I like this way because in my opinion the oral colloquium tests you in a different way than the written exam, since you have more freedom to explain the concept. From the professor point of view, although much more time consuming, I think that in this way you can understand better if the student really knows what he/she is talking about.

Unfortunately the oral exam in the British system is not allowed (as far as I know), but I keep being convinced that both exams are complementary and very important to best assess the students' knowledge.

Best regards,

Alessandro

Multiple choice is only really useful for testing small, basic ideas, and works well as formative assessments such as quizzes and homework to get students understand what material the might not know or misunderstand and need to review.  These questions also tend to be used more in larger (100+ students) classes, where it takes time to grade.  Most of the final assessments in the US tend to be a written, free response exam or a final project. The final project is particularly better at preparing students for the real world of work.

I hope that helps,

Matthew

In the Astronomy/Planetary Sciences courses I’ve taught, my testing strategy is as follows.

Quizzes are short, approximately 20-question multiple-choice affairs. They mainly determine if the student is keeping up with recent lectures and material. They can be machine graded, and so are of minimal impact on my prep time. No more than half a lecture period, usually less, is used.

Exams are given 3 times per semester. They start out with a short answer section (multiple choice or fill in the blank) to test comprehensive familiarity with the material. Then I always have a section of questions requiring a longer answer.

Typically, pick 3 of 5 questions and answer them. The purposes of this section are multiple. First, test for an in-depth understanding of a concept or course segment (e.g., Kepler’s Laws or the main theories of Lunar formation and their pros/cons). Second, it engages the student to write a coherent paragraph or two, a skill which is today underrated. Third, it gives an avenue for questions requiring either a derivation or numerical manipulation. Or maybe to graph something. In addition to “getting the answer” these questions test what I call “life skills”.

I recognize that most of my students aren’t going into the field. I try to impart a useful set of skills (the above, plus things like critical thinking) that they can employ in whatever chosen field they decide upon.

A third option is the oral exam. This is useful for smaller and upper-level classes, and allows interaction with the student to see what they’ve retained. If a student gets bogged down or blanks out, you can supply a step in the answering process that allows them to get “unstuck”. This option is a good way to introduce them to giving a paper at a meeting, or an early introduction to what they might have to do at a graduate qualification exam.

Dear Ms Ferdinand, Mr Peloni, Mr Rickert and Mr Marcialis,

Thank you all for your interesting responses.

I am wondering if take-home assignments are good indicators of how much learning has occurred. I have had students who submitted academic works, for which they had third-party assistance; such third parties can include parents, siblings, relatives, friends and those far removed and hidden on Internet sites – such people will prepare the assignment for a fee. You can get a PhD thesis prepared and written for a fee of several thousand Euros or dollars.As I teach in English, in The Netherlands where Dutch is the national  language, I could see that some of the work was not from the pen or typewriters or computers of students. When I complained to the examinations committee of the institution, Windesheim,  I was asked to do a plagiarism check. That was stupidity or a definition of stupidity, if you ask me. One must be gullible to believe that an original work prepared by a qualified person (friend, relative or even a parent) with an advanced degree for a student would have been previously submitted to Turnitin or some similar system – so there is unlikely any indication of plagiarism. The reasoning and argumentation was far too high for the students I tested in an oral testing. But the examinations committee preferred to listen to the students.

In relation to multiple-choice (MC) questions, I am not convinced that MC goes beyond the ability to recall some thing that students have casually read; it is possible to get correct answers simply by a process of elimination of clearly unrelated answers, or just through simple luck.

I would think assessments must also test understanding, ability to think/analyze relevant facts, and to arrive at an answer by synthesis of several streams of thought. Those of you who are specialists in education may perhaps refer to Bloom’s work. I am of the view that Bloom’s work while often cited do not find expression in most examinations. Perhaps you disagree but that is another issue.

I hope to read your thoughts on my views as expressed here.

Dear Mr Barbonis,

I agree with your concerns indeed. I think that home-made assignments are good for students to learn with their own pace, but it could not be so relevant for proper testing the knowledge of a student, also because of the facts you pointed out. It's okay trusting the students, but that does not mean being blind and pretend that all the students are trustworthy every time.

Regarding the multiple choice, I do not personally like that kind of choice to test the student knowledge. However, as somebody pointed out in a previous comment, it could be a first way to test the overall knowledge and understanding. That is, if you don't pass the MC test, then perhaps you should not try to make the next test, or work harder to make it. Anyway, with regard to the luck involved in the MC, for it is part of the game, but I remember a professor that used to give us very tough MC tests. These had 4 possible answers and very unlikely you could discard more than one for sure if you did not know the right answer. Moreover, every correct answer gave you 1 point, while every wrong one gave you a -0.5 points (no point for each blank answer). Therefore if you are not sure about one answer you can try your luck, but you cannot do it for the whole test.

Of course I am not officially part of the education yet, since I am still a PhD student. But I saw two very different education systems between Italy and UK and I am still trying to understand which mix of the two can be the best way of doing things.

Mr Peloni,

I  did use MC questions.

I was forced to use MC questions – they made up 20-25% of the final grade. MC questions were necessary as in the course on Operations Management and Logistics, the numbers of students taking that compulsory subject was often more than 300. We also had to submit the results in 10 working days. Thus, MC was of great help. But, in my MC questions I would also include answers that were very close to the fully correct answer, but not quite correct. Thus, students had to think very carefully. I always had 5 options as answers, which reduced the chance of guessing correctly. But I had colleagues whose MC  answers were so far off the correct answer that anyone who had thumbed through the pages of the  course book could immediately discern which options were not in any way the answer to the question

It depends on the subject and level (degree or Master or PhD). Undergraduate - Mulitple-choice questions only 10-20% which is good - don't need to mark - plus it's computerised where students can't even look at each other since different questions appear on their computer during the 1hr test. Assignments and open essay questions cover the rest.  A mixture seems good for undergraduate but not all universities go for this format. 

Master (usually mixture with open essay exam questions and assignments but some just pure assignments) & PhD (Research Methodology - must pass with exam) + Statistical class vital before the final project but not all universities go for this as well.  

May be Asian style (more towards exam based) - a mixture for undergraduate, Master for both assignment and open essay exam questions and PhD (Research Methodology - must pass with exam) + Statistical class & the final project. Each method has its pros and cons anyway. It all depends on which school of thought and preference of the university. At the end of the day, it's the uni committee or board who decide.   

Dr Lai,

Thank you for your response. I have a few questions: How can you be certain that assignments are the unaided work of the students concerned? How can you be sure that there has not been others helping out the student?. There are Internet sites out there which for a fee will do the assignment for the paying student.

I am not convinced that a committee can be be  useful, especially when directors/lecturers performance and promotions are determined by students performance or put it in another way education has become a business.I had pressure to raise pass rates and I was ticked off for demanding proper and detailed answers. In The Netherlands, universities receive government funding for each graduating student, with the quantum of payments made varying by the degree; needless to say that the amount increases from Bachelor's to doctorates or PhD's...

Please see my response to question posed by Tariq Shareef Younis, and that of another lady who commented on my response.

In Germany MC is used a lot, but there are also a lot of oral oder practical exams. I would use LongMenu instead of fill-in-the blank questions.

Follow This Link Please:

https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/developing-assignments/exams/questions-types-characteristics-suggestions