Are students slower test takers?

[Volhiker78]

^
Mamselle - that is a real life version of Before Sunrise. 

[mamselle]

Guess I'll have to watch that, then.

I think I still have the letters in my poetry book.

M.

[Anon1787]

Using a phone makes it difficult to compose a longer response that is well organized.

[ergative]

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.

You don't need to write in cursive to have distinctive handwriting that conveys intimacy. You just need to write frequently enough to have developed your own approaches to ligatures and letterforms so that your handwriting looks like no one else's.

[jerseyjay]

It is hard for me to get a sense of students in the courses I took vs the courses I teach. Like most professors, I was a good students, my parents (and at least one grandparent) had college degrees, at least two of my grandparents were native English speakers, and I went to a fairly selective university (albeit a public one).  I teach first generation college students at a public open admissions campus. And to the old, the youth of today are always worse. My professors told me that. My father's professors told him that. I did not ask my grandfather if his professors told him that, but I wouldn't be surprised.

That said, I have noticed (to speak in generalities) students do not take notes, do not read as much, and are not used to having to think things through critically. They do not outline responses. They do not write in cursive either--or write much at all. This certainly makes them poorer test takers (on average) than I was. Whether it is a fair generalization for all those in their generation (including at more elite schools) or for all those in my generation (including those who went to less elite schools) I cannot say.

[FishProf]

Grading an all essay exam, and I can clearly see the difference between students who take notes in class, and those who don't (because I pay attention to who is taking notes).

This was an open note exam.  Some are fabulous.  Others are so lacking in information that I would guess the students were absent on the days in question - but I know they weren't.

Also, first student done = worst performance so far
Last student done = among the best

I'll run the numbers when I finish grading

[the_geneticist]

I think the switch from all online assessments to in-person has been a bit of a shock for my students.

Online exams were often open note, cheating was rampant, and they didn't have to write anything by hand.

In person exams that are closed book, no internet available, and actually holding a pencil are rough.  Either you have the knowledge (and skills) or you don't.

But I'm shocked at how quickly they finished the exam.  Granted, I thought it was rather easy, but they are just not taking time to read carefully or look at the provided diagrams.  The average is a C and that is with me being rather generous with partial credit.  I'm going to have some very sad "but I'm a pre-med! I need an A or my life is RUINED!" students in my office this week . . . .

[artalot]

My general sense is that they are unused to having to write extemporaneously. The ones who take notes and study can regurgitate basic information, but writing an essay that weaves together concepts is beyond the experience of many. Online classes also ruined whatever study skills they possessed, as most exams were open note and a large subsection of students appeared to have cheated in some way. Combine lack of experience writing in-class essays with lack of note-taking and study skills and you get very quickly or slowly taken exams that are painful to grade.
FWIW: I still offer exams online, we just take them in campus computer lab.

[mamselle]

I'll guess that it could also have to do with the pressure on H.S. teachers to fit in all the topics they're required to cover for those places with state tests for H.S. graduation (don't know how many that is, anymore).

I recall having extemporaneous writing from 9th grade on up in English classes and occasionally in other classes as well (besides exam essay questions).

We'd go over them in class, and might cover, say, one short story afterwards, but the bulk of that class day was taken up with writing--maybe once every other week or so.

Having subbed in a state where the "teach-to-the-test" mentality is such a lockstep requirement that they couldn't even fit in a day or two for a local geology project I proposed (cool outcrops near each of the 9 elementary schools in the system; I'd taught at all of them and saw that 3rd grade, when they did a unit on earth science/geology, would be the right time to do it), I realized that the more dynamic/spontaneous discovery/'relevant-topical-coverage' elements of learning and responding to materials learned are choked out.

There's only time to teach factual content, with little interpretive nuance, in such settings, and they may well be legion.

M.   

[dr_evil]

I'm still online for this semester because I'm worried about the variants and in a high-risk group. Since my exams are online, I expect a lot of the time is taken up by trying to cheat (and doing it poorly). However, many students had trouble completing exams even before Covid, when they were F2F with pencil and paper. Taking longer for exams isn't due to writing essays in my class because my exams tend to be more mathematical, but perhaps they've gotten worse at math. I have had some that give bizarre answers and they tell me "but that's what the calculator said," as if the calculator is the Oracle at Delphi or something.

I do think many students don't believe they should have to remember anything. One even told me that everything can be looked up, so me expecting them to remember was unreasonable. I figure that some things are so basic that one should not have to look them up every time.

[marshwiggle]

I do think many students don't believe they should have to remember anything. One even told me that everything can be looked up, so me expecting them to remember was unreasonable. I figure that some things are so basic that one should not have to look them up every time.

It seems that students need to be exposed to lots of examples, from all kinds of different areas of knowledge, of the kinds of things that cannot be merely "looked up". Because this is just going to keep getting worse.

[Aster]

Using a phone makes it difficult to compose a longer response that is well organized.

THIS. So much this.

Way too many students right now are trying to do college from those little toy computer phones.

It has gotten so bad that I've recently added syllabus language and orientation talks mandating that all student have and use a "proper work computer".

[ciao_yall]

Using a phone makes it difficult to compose a longer response that is well organized.

THIS. So much this.

Way too many students right now are trying to do college from those little toy computer phones.

It has gotten so bad that I've recently added syllabus language and orientation talks mandating that all student have and use a "proper work computer".

I had a student today tell me he wrote his paper on his phone, which was why he wasn't able to format it with headers, paragraphs, etc.

Bright kid, actually did pretty well on his paper content-wise. But my eyeballs were bleeding!

[kaysixteen]

Are campus computer labs still shuttered?   IOW, what excuse does undergrad x have for not writing his paper on a proper machine, *and then* printing out a copy of it for professor?

[the_geneticist]

Are campus computer labs still shuttered?   IOW, what excuse does undergrad x have for not writing his paper on a proper machine, *and then* printing out a copy of it for professor?

If they aren't on campus, then they can't use the computer labs.  I had remote students in other states, countries, and continents.