Cap exam weights to 50% of total course grades
February 6, 2023
After a lovely winter break, the spring semester is here and exam season will arrive shortly, if it hasn’t already. You might find yourself studying for an exam, only to forget the material after a couple of days.
However, large exams are not the most effective way to help students retain information, and they therefore should not constitute the majority of a student’s final letter grade. All UT class exams should be capped at 50% of the total course grade, and there should instead be more opportunities for in-class participation and collaborative projects and assignments.
Debra Hansen, assistant professor of instruction in the UT biology department, has shifted her focus from summative to formative assessments to enhance her students’ learning.
“I’m interested in having students not only learn for the exam but also retain that knowledge for as long as possible after the class is over,” Hansen said. “For us as humans to really learn something and make it stick, we need repeated testing. So my preference is to have small tests and then follow that up with a larger cumulative (final) exam.”
While Dr. Hansen now incorporates smaller and more frequent quizzes into her curriculum, some UT professors still weigh their exams to be 60% or more of a student’s final letter grade. This practice is especially common in pre-med or engineering classes, but it does more harm than good. Large exams don’t accurately show how well students know course information since there are various factors as to why a student might not perform well on test days, including test anxiety.
“I think people are allowed to have off days,” mechanical engineering junior Stephanie Kim said. “Sometimes those off days (are) on exams, so I don’t think that should be held against a student.”
A study conducted by Marissa E. Thompson, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, also found that students’ performance in STEM-related courses ultimately impacted their decision to keep pursuing STEM-related fields. Placing such a high emphasis on exams could potentially discourage students from pursuing STEM careers.
Rather than emphasizing exams by weighing them so heavily, instructors should focus on homework, in-class participation and opportunities for collaborative or project-based learning to increase student retention and enjoyment.
Many students like Kim would prefer to have more grades based on homework or in-class practice instead of larger cumulative exams.
“Homework (and) in-class assignments are where students are like, ‘You have to pay attention and you have to stay accountable for your studies’ versus an exam that might happen once or twice a (semester),” Kim said.
While some professors prefer to have larger cumulative assessments as a way to measure student learning, studies have shown that smaller and more frequent exams encourage students to engage with class material.
Placing a higher emphasis on larger tests could lead some students to resort to memorization as a form of studying, but this technique can discourage students from actively learning and understanding the material.
“The classes that I had the best experiences in did not weigh exams (to be) the majority of the students’ final grade, and those were also the classes where I was able to walk away with good memories and a lot of knowledge,” Kim said.
To promote student retention over short-term memorization, UT should cap exams to be no more than 50% of total course grades and instead emphasize other course content like homework assignments and projects.
DonJuan is a Plan II and economics freshman from Quanah, Texas.
