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There may be more time spent in creating it but if you use the same test every year as in the post I cited, then yes, I'd say it's easy. Certainly the scoring is much easier. The bigger point was that it is not necessarily effective for many assessment situations.
You can't use the same tests every year. As soon as kids figure that one out, EVERYONE is acing your tests. They have to be rewritten every year. If I taught the same course for several years, I'd have a test bank of questions to draw from and then it wouldn't be hard to write a test but there is a lot of work that goes into writing each multiple choice exam. Try it. Write a question a correct answer and three wrong answers that sound like they could be right. Now write 45 of them. Easier said than done.
Scoring is easier if you use scan trons. Not so easy if done by hand. However, answers are either right or wrong. There's no debating partial credit. That is a plus. It can get tough to decide who deserves partial credit and who doesn't and the students will argue with you.
I teach chemistry and physics so multiple choice tests are a total PITA even with the easier scoring. I have to write questions to test every step of a process instead of just one where they are asked to use the process. In a written answer, I can see where they made their mistakes. On a multiple choice exam, I have to anticipate every possible mistake and write a question (complete with three wrong answers that appear plausible) for each one.
Take one physics problem analyzing projectile motion. I need a question that tests whether they can, correctly, identify each given, one that determines if they can pick the right equations (tough one here as there is often more than one way to approach a physics problem), one that determines if they know to break the vectors up into components, one that determines if they know which angles to use, and one that determines if they can put it all together and get a final answer.
Sorry but it's WAY easier to just give them a problem and grade it. I spend many more hours constructing these test than I'd ever spend grading problems.
If they don't stand up and speak out, then they are accepting it - "Actions speak louder than lack of words."
I am not arguing that nobody can succeed without cheating - but I am arguing that many students do not perceive it is possible, let alone as easy.
But what you're personal experience with success has been does not address the a common experience and perspective.
I don't know why you would think it isn't easier to succeed with cheating, nor why you believe that cheating doesn't bring better grades, money, or prestige.
But I especially am confused by what you think this great downside is for cheaters. If few people who cheat get caught, and most who cheat think they, themselves, are moral - which seems to be the case, given humanity's seemingly boundless capacity for rationalization - then where is their downside?
*sigh*
50 years ago, people behaved better. They behaved better in the classrooms. They treated policemen with more respect, government officials with more respect, and teachers with more respect.
This is not a myth, nor particularly romanticized - it's just the way things were. It was not perfect or even close. And I suspect the reason most people behaved more morally was because they believed in ultimate consequences to a far greater extent than people seem to now - AND they were less aware of the country's leaders' 'clay feet.'
Public authority figures were far more rarely seen in a criminal light or even a familial scandal.
There were parts of this country that were no simpler then - but there are many parts that were. The pressures on a teenager were less then than now, rightly or wrongly.
Public authority figures were rarely seen in a criminal light because many potentially scandalous activities and actions were successfully kept hidden.
Depends on what you mean by people behaved "better," of course, but don't forget that 50 years ago it was socially acceptable in many places to openly discriminate against people due to their race or genders, things like McCarthyism attempted to keep people in check, and there was still plenty of crime against both people and property. There were fewer pressures on teenagers in many ways, but many also encountered far more limitations.
People still lose their jobs, face embarrassing news coverage, and otherwise face social or economic sanctions for cheating. Sometimes they even get tossed in jail. White collar criminals still tend to get more of a pass than they deserve, but it's not like everyone is giving in and saying "ok, it's fine. Don't worry about it. We all do it."
I don't believe that cheating does bring better jobs, prestige, or money because if you get exposed then there's a good chance that it will all come crashing down. In my line of work if you cheated or didn't actually know the material it would be glaringly obvious. Maybe you could sneak your way into a job, but the end result would be the humiliation of being fired.
My personal experience succeeding without cheating or lying isn't just a fluke. While I don't know the inner secrets of my friends and family, I doubt they've cheated their way to success, either. If kids really do feel that the only way to succeed is to lie and to cheat then it's because we as a society have highlighted those who have done so, and not pointed to the many, many examples of people who have not.
there is a lot of work that goes into writing each multiple choice exam. Try it. Write a question a correct answer and three wrong answers that sound like they could be right. Now write 45 of them. Easier said than done.
This is another of those "your mileage may vary" areas.
Just because making multiple choice questions is more difficult for you does not mean it is more difficult for everybody.
It also varies on what one is testing, for sure. Are you testing what the symbols for the Periodic Table are or what the positions on it mean? Then MC is relatively easy. Order of operations for a reaction can be harder, I imagine.
But, even with the state test's being a multiple choice test, I would hope that is not how you do the majority of your testing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Scoring is easier if you use scan trons. Not so easy if done by hand. However, answers are either right or wrong. There's no debating partial credit. That is a plus. It can get tough to decide who deserves partial credit and who doesn't and the students will argue with you.
Yes - this is one of the reasons somebody suggested to you that multiple choice tests are easier for the teacher.
BTW, even without a scan tron, the old 'stencil approach works pretty well. There are a couple ways to use those swiftly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Take one physics problem analyzing projectile motion. I need a question that tests whether they can, correctly, identify each given, one that determines if they can pick the right equations (tough one here as there is often more than one way to approach a physics problem), one that determines if they know to break the vectors up into components, one that determines if they know which angles to use, and one that determines if they can put it all together and get a final answer.
Sorry but it's WAY easier to just give them a problem and grade it. I spend many more hours constructing these test than I'd ever spend grading problems.
I'm sorry you have such difficulty with this task, especially given the relative utility of the tests to start with.
Are you permitted to combine types of tests? Can you, for example, give a set of completely done out problems, some correct and some incorrect - with questions about the various problems, ranging from "Which step in problem A is a mistake" to "Which of the above solves a projectile motion problem?" to "which is the correct order of steps for a ____ problem?"
I know there are also many multiple choice question sets already out there for Physics which one can either use at no cost or edit to fit one's own problems pretty easily.
Regardless, I am sorry that you are pressured to use MC tests predominantly, and that you find the creation of them to be onerous.
Public authority figures were rarely seen in a criminal light because many potentially scandalous activities and actions were successfully kept hidden.
Depends on what you mean by people behaved "better," of course, but don't forget that 50 years ago it was socially acceptable in many places to openly discriminate against people due to their race or genders, things like McCarthyism attempted to keep people in check, and there was still plenty of crime against both people and property. There were fewer pressures on teenagers in many ways, but many also encountered far more limitations.
People still lose their jobs, face embarrassing news coverage, and otherwise face social or economic sanctions for cheating. Sometimes they even get tossed in jail. White collar criminals still tend to get more of a pass than they deserve, but it's not like everyone is giving in and saying "ok, it's fine. Don't worry about it. We all do it."
I agree with all of this - having half as much crime 50 years ago (per 100,000 people, as well as in aggregate) does not mean no crime. Having less news about the venal activities of those in power does not mean there was no such venal activity - though we have reason to believe there was less, though never none.
But your last paragraph above is a fine example of what I mean. "Sometimes they even get tossed in jail." Rare is the outrage against light sentences for such things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist
I don't believe that cheating does bring better jobs, prestige, or money because if you get exposed then there's a good chance that it will all come crashing down.
I find this to be a non-sequitur.
That it all comes crashing down in some instances does not mean it did not and does not lead to better jobs/prestige/money - it means there is increased risk of losing it. The jobs/prestige/money are and were still there until one gets caught - and since most cheaters are not caught, the risk is understandably seen as a reasonable gamble.
It's simpler than that:
Look at speeding on the highway.
Look at radar detectors, whose sole purpose is to aid in cheating.
Look at the diploma mills.
Look at the books that sell cheat codes for video games - often video games for individual players! This is making money by teaching people how to cheat on solitaire, basically.
Quote:
Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist
While I don't know the inner secrets of my friends and family, I doubt they've cheated their way to success, either. If kids really do feel that the only way to succeed is to lie and to cheat then it's because we as a society have highlighted those who have done so, and not pointed to the many, many examples of people who have not.
Would it change your opinion of them if they had? Would you cease being friends with those who had? Would their reasoning for cheating impact your decision?
It is impossible to prove one didn't cheat - this is why people are so often bitter about not getting jobs. They are convinced that the person who got it must have 'cheated' some how. When they get it, of course, it is all legit.
When we get fired, it was always unjustly. When the guy we don't like gets fired, we are always smug that he deserved it.
Yes, it would change my opinion of my friends or family if I knew that they had lied or cheated their way to the "the top." It would very drastically change the way I felt about them, as I'd feel as though they'd lied to me, too.
I do know someone (a former employee) who have greatly embellished their resumes; not outright lying, but certainly questionable. I saw it by accident, and yes, it did taint my impression of her. I would not be willing to serve as a reference due in part to this overly imaginative embellishment.
Another point on the cheating not bringing better grades, etc., is that one has to have a lot of trust in the method of cheating; as far as grades, anyway, the cheating student has to believe that the costs/benefits of cheating are greater than that of not cheating. If it's looking at bubbles on an answer sheet that means assuming that the answer sheet is actually correct and is the same as the answer sheet being used by the student. If it means buying a paper from one of those online sites it means assuming that the paper in question is better than he or she could write on her own. In all cases it means assuming that the benefits outweigh the risks. Perhaps I have an overly-inflated ego or am overly controlling, but even after factoring out any ethical concerns I wouldn't put my reputation, grades, or job on the line based on such risk factors.
"We are a culture of liars. Maybe we'd all benefit from brushing up on our skills."
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