Are students slower test takers?

[dr_evil]

Something in the exam corrections thread got me thinking about the length of time students take for exams. I have tests that are about the same length as when I started teaching, yet now students never seem to finish on time and are frequently complaining that the exams are too long. Has anyone else noticed that their students take longer to finish exams than they used to years ago? Just wondering if it's just me. I would say some is because I'm still currently online, so they're frantically trying to find the answers in the text online, but they were slow before Covid and moving online too.

[Parasaurolophus]

Many of my slowest are cheating in real time--as in, posting questions and crossing their fingers that someone will answer.

Beyond that, though, I do share the impression--but I'm also pretty sure I'm misremembering how long tests actually took when I was a student. One thing that's clear, however, is that if you have essay questions, they manage to write way less than we did back in the day. I imagine it's because they aren't used to writing so much.

[marshwiggle]

I think each successive generation of students is more confused by the idea of a test, in the sense of "information you can't just google when you need it". The idea that there's stuff you need to understand makes their heads explode.

[mamselle]

I also get the sense that some find it very hard to organize their notes, their thinking, or what they know.

I used to outline everything, then create an empty definition outline to fill in as a way of studying.

I described this as a study strategy to a class once, and they didn't seem to see how they could (maybe, 'had the right to') move stuff around to make it make sense to themselves, or to, say, integrate what the readings said with what their course notes said.

It was all linear stuff to be memorized (or not), the logic of the connections and the possibility that some kind of hierarchical order could be imposed on them that would help them code their information into something approaching and understandable whole seemed like too many dimensions of thinking to take in.

If that's one's baseline, it's hard to compose even an opening sentence, because how would you know where to begin in an open-answer essay?

Poor ducklings....they need some sense of internal structure, like an endoskeleton, not just the externally-imposed exoskeleton they think will get them through.

M.   

[FishProf]

I give my students an analogy about building knowledge being equivalent to building a Roman Arch to start each semester.  The look of perplexity/wonder on their faces is always a little surprising.

How do they get through high school and/or some college if they cannot organize their own notes.

Then again, about half my students don't take notes.  At all.

[Aster]

Most of mine are taking less time, not more.

And they're flunking in droves.

They aren't even trying.

[kaysixteen]

Some students taking longer on essay tests than earlier generations' did may well be due to inability to write cursive.   Sadly.   Like it or not.

[Morden]

^ This. It's painful to watch them try to write essays in class. They aren't even holding their pens in a way that allows for efficient movement. No wonder they have to shake out the hand cramps.

[fishbrains]

I'm trying to remember if I have written anything more than one page by hand in the last 15 years--not counting the white board in the classroom, lecture outlines, or mindless college paperwork. I think my hands would be cramping a bit if I had to hand-write a timed in-class essay these days.

I also used to have nice handwriting, but now my cursive looks pretty sad, alas.

[Ruralguy]

I used zero cursive after hs, and very little after 6th grade. I've never thought it was important and neither did any of my professors.  I don't really think this slowed me down, at least not relative to peers of that time.

I think their lack of organization is more likely to be the culprit.

[kaysixteen]

I assume at least humanities and probably social sci profs still give essay, or at least short answer, questions on in class tests.   If one cannot write cursive, it is difficult to see how printing out one's answers would be able to be done as quickly as one could cursive-write the answers?

[quasihumanist]

I also get the sense that some find it very hard to organize their notes, their thinking, or what they know.

I used to outline everything, then create an empty definition outline to fill in as a way of studying.

I described this as a study strategy to a class once, and they didn't seem to see how they could (maybe, 'had the right to') move stuff around to make it make sense to themselves, or to, say, integrate what the readings said with what their course notes said.

It was all linear stuff to be memorized (or not), the logic of the connections and the possibility that some kind of hierarchical order could be imposed on them that would help them code their information into something approaching and understandable whole seemed like too many dimensions of thinking to take in.

If that's one's baseline, it's hard to compose even an opening sentence, because how would you know where to begin in an open-answer essay?

Poor ducklings....they need some sense of internal structure, like an endoskeleton, not just the externally-imposed exoskeleton they think will get them through.

M.

My weakest students don't believe there's any such thing as understanding, nor can they conceive of an epistemology other than "He's a prophet; follow him."  They think everyone is always doomed to wandering around in complete darkness hoping their feelings about where to go come from God rather than the Devil.

[Ruralguy]

Maybe my complete disdain for cursive is coloring my opinion. I've gone so far as to tell my daughter it's stupid..her teachers are lying when they say you need it.

[marshwiggle]

Maybe my complete disdain for cursive is coloring my opinion. I've gone so far as to tell my daughter it's stupid..her teachers are lying when they say you need it.

It sounds like you've never gotten love letters in cursive. There's something very intimate about messages in a person's own handwriting.

[mamselle]

Maybe my complete disdain for cursive is coloring my opinion. I've gone so far as to tell my daughter it's stupid..her teachers are lying when they say you need it.

It sounds like you've never gotten love letters in cursive. There's something very intimate about messages in a person's own handwriting.

Oh, golly, you just took me back to the first love-letters I ever got, from a Swiss kid, a very cute apprentice watchmaker, in 1973, the summer my sister and I spent 10 weeks biking and back-packing in Europe and the UK.

We (Francois, we'll say, and I) stayed up talking about philosophy all night (in French) on the train from Lucerne to Geneva--my sister was asleep after the first 20 min., but he was agnostic, and I'd just studied Sartre in French class that year, so we were like otters juggling concepts around, just for the fun of it.

Or so I thought. After we left him, still on the train, at 5 AM, I was bemused, but not really smitten.

Apparently, he felt very strongly otherwise. I started getting these beautifully written, calligraphic letters with hand-drawn fall leaves on them after we got back in August. The India ink and scratchy-nib lines spoke across the ocean.

After a couple of replies, I stopped answering because they were just too intimate, and I'd only just finished high school and knew I had a lot more to go before I was even prepared to think about being that serious over someone else.

I sometimes think I should have kept on following up.

I've never had a better offer since...

M.