On Wed, 4 Oct 2000, Paul Brandon wrote:
>> Personally, I've always thought that final exams are a good test of short
>> term memory ;-)
And at 10:20 AM 10/4/00 -0700, Annette Taylor wrote:
>Now I have always thought the opposite, especially for a cumulative final
>exam--the material was once studied well enough to be tested over and
>then at some later time restudied well enough to be tested over and
>_should_ be available for a longer term.
In theory I would agree with Annette. The material _should_ be available
for a longer term. But based on experience I have to go with Paul. Of
course, I still give the comprehensive final...
I'm wondering if there have been any studies that have looked at (or simply
asked) whether students study with short-term or long-term retention in mind.
What appears to be happening here is that students study enough to get the
material into memory long enough for the test, then they forget it. The
only difference between a test during the semester and a comprehensive
final is the amount of material they have to study for the next day. (Also,
they pick up the material for the final faster than for the regular tests
because of prior exposure.)
It seems to me that the tests don't require long-term retention of the
material, and as a result most of what students appear to learn in one
course is frequently forgotten by the next semester... if tests are the
only measure of knowledge gained. I feel that projects and hands-on
activities often lead to better retention long-term than simply relying on
tests for this reason.
I'm sure that repeated exposure is also an issue... the more times a
student has to be exposed to material, the more likely they are to remember
it... hmmm, perhaps a new testing strategy... each test is cummulative
throughout the semester. So, if you give 4 tests, some material on the 4th
exam has already been covered on 3 other exams... but it could give the
impression that some material is more important...
Okay, I just got finished teaching about selecting subjects for studies to
a rather unresponsive group so I'm rambling... though I'm not sure if the
two are really related...
- Marc
G. Marc Turner, MEd
Lecturer & Head of Computer Operations
Department of Psychology
Southwest Texas State University
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
