Hi Melady: What a mess!
I would have to agree that the contextual cues are overwhelming in this case! Nevertheless, I guess I would get back to the purpose for taking the research methods course and for passing the course. If it is truly a fundamental part of your department's mission statement that, at least in part, a student must be proficient in research methods to move on in the major, then I think each student's demonstration of knowledge of the subject, regardless of method of assessment, should be sufficient to allow this to happen. However, there are so many related issues here. For example, if they willfully took the MC exam, knowing that they might not pass the written equivalent, then this constitutes academic dishonesty. But it would be hard to provide concrete evidence for this. I am curious how they did on the other professor's exam. I can easily envision a situation in which they might have only marginally passed that exam, and in a sense I think it would demonstrate fairly sufficient knowledge of the topic since each professor tends to emphasize slightly different elements....and the low grade might be punishment enough????? Could/should the TAs have caught on?????? Sometimes there is the issue of test anxiety--could they truly have made an honest error in taking the other exam? Well, during my finals last week I ended the multiple choice part of the exam with a psychology joke I took from some website or other that has psychology jokes--the one about how many people of different personality disorders it takes to change a lightbulb? (narcissistic is one, who waits for the world to revolve around him to screw it in; the passive aggressive who breaks the bulb, etc.). There are about 10 of these scenarious for different personality disorders. I find that it breaks up some test anxiety to end that section with a joke before they go on to the written answers. Anyway, to make this long story short, one student came up to me and asked if he was to answer that essay question on the back of the page or in the blue book! Oh My! Test anxiety can do strange things to students. I'd love to hear how you resolve this one. annette Quoting Melady Preece <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Two students from my section of Research Methods (class size = 250) just > notified me that they accidentally took the exam for another section of the > same course. It was given in the room next to the room my exam was given > in. I was in my room, and the other professor was in his. My name and the > other professor's name were at the top of our respective exams, along with > the section number. My T.A. was invigilating my exam, his T.A. was > invigilating his (just trying to emphasize the number of contextual cues). > Further, his exam was all multiple choice, while mine involved several short > answer questions, and 3 essays. Some of the content is similar, but most > was quite different. I had told the students the exact composition of the > exam beforehand. Students must pass this course to be admitted to the Psych > major. Many of my international students do more poorly on written exams > than on multiple choice, because of their poor English skills. Both of > these students are Asian. > > Should I give the students the grade they got on the other professor's exam? > Should I give them a make-up exam? Should I give them a zero? > > I would appreciate any thoughts... > > Melady Preece > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Department of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
