Emma’s Dilemmas: Final exams are sucking out my soul
Finals: every high schooler’s worst nightmare. Some view them as an opportunity to boost grades, but with our poor study habits, chronic procrastination, and oh so little time to review class content given hours of doom scrolling, how can anyone be expected to take an hour and a half long test?
As primary agents of their own procrastination-field demises, students have become addicted to being given ample opportunities for retakes, test analyses, and other grade-boosting methods. Finals, however, are the one measure that had to be left as is. They offer no room to fix mistakes, and therefore no room for students to further their learning.
This high stakes environment doesn’t take into account that post secondary schools are beginning to acknowledge tests aren’t always good determiners of a student’s academic performance. Numerous colleges have dropped exams such as the ACT and SAT from their application requirements, likely due to recent debates regarding their validity when it comes to gauging student’s knowledge.
Around 1930, standardized tests, especially multiple choice, began to spread rapidly across the country, though this led to debates about how accurately they could truly assess growth. Short answer: they don’t. Before taking any standardized test, including finals, students tirelessly try and memorize all they can, attempting to cram every morsel of information possible into their brain. While this helps students trudge through their exams, the information is going to leave their memory as soon as they walk out of the 90-minute session.
Cognitive scientists Daniel Willingham and Robert Bjork tested college students in 2015 to see how much information they were able to recall two weeks after their final exam. They found that more than 90% of the information which students had worked tirelessly to encode, had been forgotten.
The ability to recall information shouldn’t be the priority of schools, as knowing how to problem solve and what questions to ask are much more valuable skills that will translate to both adulthood, and the workforce that Americans are molded to fill.
A more effective method of displaying knowledge exists within Performance-Based Assessment, also known as PBA. This form of assessment allows students to display their learning in ways that are both meaningful and personalized. Standardized tests aren’t designed to fit individual students who each have their own needs. With PBA, students can display their learning in any way they see fit whether that be through a poem, presentation, research paper, or whatever way adheres to their learning style.
Though a more unlikely solution, perhaps finals should be eliminated altogether. Students who need the grade boost could have one last opportunity to display their growth, while other students who are at a comfortable spot with their grades would get a chance to rest and recharge before the new semester begins.
Especially in recent years, when schools have become more aware of the fact that the system doesn’t always accommodate students’ diverse learning styles, it’s surprising that finals are still in place. The hard lessons sown in Covid should yield a harvest of more efficient learning and assessment now. Virtual learning, focusing on essential skills, and doing away with subjective, high stakes assessments that pale in significance to the actual learning that took place during the preceding 18 weeks.
by Emma Toney
Published January 29, 2024
Oshkosh West Index volume 120 issue IV