Maybe: but that's unobservable. All exams have time limits of some kind. If they did not, the procrastinators would NEVER get theirs finished. Even given take-home exams and a matter of weeks to do them, most papers are in fact turned in (in my experience) practically AT the deadline.
well, there can be lots of reasons for this, not the least might be the perception on the part of the students that if you say it is due friday in class .... then turn it in friday IN class ... NOT before (nor after)
sure, because you set the deadline and ... they have to be turned in then ... surely, you can't distinguish in this case between the student who needed exactly that amount of time ... from one who had it done 3 days earlier but, was not by your office until the deadline ... from a student who really needed MORE time (yes ... procrastinated!) but, turns it in since if he/she doesn't ... he/she gets a zero
my point is: DATA AT THIS BUNCH UP POINT IS MURKY DATA
Hard to see support for the idea that the distribution of time taken to complete an assignment (whether an exam or otherwise) is "artificially produced". Seems to me to be the nature of the beast: quite naturally produced.
no ... i don't agree ... WHY would you think that most tend to bunch up at that point?
there are at least 2 baselines we can visualize ...
baseline 1
how long before you turn the test in given the 1 hour time limit
baseline 2
how long before you turn the test in given that you have as much time as you need
i am not suggesting that the observable data does not form a radically - skewed distribution ... i am just suggesting that the "amount" of it's - skew is partly a function of the fact that you insist that they turn in the test in no more than 60 minutes ... even GOOD students sometimes hold on to their tests as long as they can ...
what if the test above were 60 items ... which produces the radically - skew ... given 1 hour
now, you cut the test to 30 items ... but, give the same 1 hour ... ? you are not going to see the same degree of - skew ... that is for sure
as long as we don't interpret this data as meaning ... "the amount of time NEEDED to complete the test ... " ... i am ok with it ...
on a related matter ... what if one wanted to examine the relationship between the amount of time needed to complete a test AND the score ON the test? with a fixed time limit ... say like the 1 hour above ... you do get this bunching effect near 60 minutes and the distinctions between the times more or less vanishes .... whereas we can be pretty sure that someone who turns it in in 20 minutes (which someone will do) has spent less time than someone who turned it in in 40 .... but, when you have 9 people who give it to you at minute 60 ... one can't make the assumption that they equally needed 60 minutes ... if the time limit were not a limit ... then, one could examine the relationship between time needed and score ... in a much cleaner way
On Sat, 7 Jun 2003, Dennis Roberts wrote:
> of course, this is sort of artificially produced since there is a > time limit ... if the exam were not timed ... while it might still > have some - skew to it ... it would not be what we typically see in > that the mass wait till close to the time is up ... > > but, since students are so conditioned to be thinking of an exam as > being some fixed time limit ... the more natural time that examinees > "would" spend if not time constrained ... might be rather hard to > find in the short run
in response to Stan Brown's reaction to Thom Baguley's example:
> > >Time elapsed before leaving exam hall. (Left skewed with a slight > > >blip close to zero and a peak at the end IMO). > > > >I love this example: it will relate directly to a phenomenon every > >student is familiar with. ... My O matches yours on this.
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