Ways to assess understanding

Exams, no-one really likes doing them but there needs to be a way of assessing knowledge and skills. Do they provide an accurate way to judge knowledge on a subject or are they outdated? This post looks at various issues to do with how best to examine a persons knowledge, based on personal experiences as a recent university graduate.



Every year thousands of students gather up all the notes scribbled in hours of lectures, seminars and tutorials and prepare to demonstrate their new found understanding in either a set exam or coursework based assignment. Sometimes there is nothing worse, the pressure of a looming exam for many can really affect wellbeing. On the day there is the nervous wait outside, then the exam begins with the frantic rustling of paper before the silence fills the hall with the only exception of the old floor boards creeking and the guy with a blocked up nose at the desk infront.

Coursework was first introduced back in 1975 as a way to examine practical knowledge, the student can produce a body of work to better demonstrate capability. However one problem with coursework, especially today, is that most people have access to the internet and hence a world of information at finger length. Work which involves producing a physical outcome such as Art could be counted as an exception, this will have been aided by the internet as researching current art trends and news is made quicker, cheaper and easier. Coursework is the most difficult form of assessment to moderate, today papers are scanned by computers as well as being hand marked to check for plagiarism however those with access to people 'in the know' will have a significant advantage.

Open book exams allow specified material to be taken into the exam as reference. Many of my exams were in this format and clearly if this is allowed the paper should have more challanging and unique questions. In my experience in most cases they were suitably challanging however some cases in which you could take practice papers into the exam which were a little too similar to the real thing.

It's commonly done as to assess speaking ability of a foreign language, an oral assessment gives the assessor a more telling picture of the individuals ability as (in my opinion) a deeper knowledge is required to talk about a subject and answer on the spot questions than just writing it down. When applying for jobs you will always have a face-to-face interview to allow the employer to get a true idea of your understanding. The downside to this assesment is that of fairness, if differing questions are being asked then how can you ensure that they are all of the same difficulty?

On the scale in which assesments take place I don't think it is ever possible to find a solution which is fool proof. Eventually however those who obtained results by not putting in the hard graft will eventully come up short when asked to put that into action. It really is the work that has been put in though the months (or years) before that will be the lasting thing, not what happens on one single day. I will end with these lyrics which sort of sum it up. "I'm so glad that this has taken so long 'cause it's the journey that made me so strong." (Snow Patrol - Warmer Climate)