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Show questions in advance to cut exam stress, say advisers
10 April 2008
Paper argues that such a move will help universities conform to disability law. Melanie Newman reports
Universities should consider giving students examination questions in advance and allow them to use prompt sheets, the University Mental Health Advisors Network has said.
A policy paper adopted by the network says: "Allowing students to know what questions they are going to be asked in an examination beforehand ... significantly reduces the fear factor associated with the unknown."
The practice could help universities meet the needs of students with mental-health problems, as they are required to do by law, but it could also provide benefits for all students.
"As this method is likely to more accurately assess students' knowledge ... it is arguably a better way to assess students in general," the paper says.
The Disability Discrimination Act requires universities to make "anticipatory adjustments" where disabled students' needs can be predicted. But the paper notes that such adjustments are "fairly few and far between" in the sector.
It recommends that universities take a "portfolio approach" to assessment, allowing students to choose how they demonstrate their abilities. For example, a student may elect to undertake a piece of coursework, a presentation or an examination.
"If such an approach were adopted across a whole course, the need for reactive adjustments would become minimal," the paper says.
An argument frequently used against adopting such an approach is that it would benefit all students. The paper's author, the advisers' network chairman Philip Scarffe, a mental-health adviser at Nottingham Trent University, said: "The perception of our members was that sometimes tutors were unsure about making an adjustment for a student with mental-health difficulties, because they believed such an adjustment would be of benefit to students in general.
"This should perhaps be seen as an argument for approaching assessment in a different way more generally."
Law firm Pinsent Masons said that universities may be concerned about treating disabled students substantially more favourably than non-disabled students. But the Disability Discrimination Act requires more favourable treatment, it said.
The DDA, in contrast to other equality legislation such as the Sex Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act, does not regard the differences between disabled people and others as irrelevant.
Quoting from a recent legal judgment, Pinsent Masons said: "(The law) expects reasonable adjustments to be made to cater for the special needs of disabled people. It necessarily entails an element of more favourable treatment."
The advisers' body also disputes the view that exams are the most robust way of testing students' ability. "Where a student is unable to demonstrate ability in this way, the tool of an examination is not serving its purpose," the policy paper notes.
The vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, Patricia Broadfoot, announced plans last year to scrap first-year exams and substantially reduce exams in other years. But her proposals were put on hold after staff and students objected.
melanie.newman@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments
A rather misleading headline, assuming that the authors of the papers are suggesting a change in the type of assessments we use, not simply publishing exam papers in advance. The latter would be rather careless, as papers are often designed to test only a subset of the curriculum. This is only a valid approach in combination with a moratorium on the questions during learning (otherwise learning would most likely be limited to these questions). <p>What we need is to move towards more authentic and negotiated assessment, and away from the eternal exam and essay constructions. That is hardly a new notion however, and not really anything to do with disability in particular.
Excellent advice from the University Mental Health Advisors Network. Exams tend to test memory rather than knowlegde, and are a very poor method of testing understanding. Unfortunately they are the easiest way of assessing students and the least time-consuming for academic staff. I speak as an academic with a background in the pure sciences who has long had concerns about exams as an assessment tool.
Giving exams questions to students ahead of exams is no new practice at higher levels, and this can be extended to the lower levels as well. But it should be borne in mind that in such situations exams questions are all embrasing and covers both taught and untaught concepts. Teachers and lecturers raise marking schemes because the expect more from students. <p>Knowing these, students who have not prepared well enough for the test will still undergo through some level of stress, the intensity of which will vary from one individual to the other. Students, who have prepared well enough, will go through less stress whether they are given the questions ahead of time or not.