Thoughts about Testing Some Thoughts About Testing. No matter how clearly professors present their goals in teaching, students' goals are strongly influenced by tests or other activities that determine grades. Although most teachers try to nurture intrinsic motives for learning students must still get acceptable grades to achieve other academic and vocational goals.
Tests provide an operational definition of goals that is very compelling for the students.
Thus if teachers say that they are concerned about developing skills and strategies for further learning and problem solving, and that they hope to help students develop cognitive structures that form a foundation for continued learning, and then give tests that require memory of individual facts, definitions, and isolated information, students will memorize the facts, definitions, and information on which they expect to be tested. In doing so they will use memorization, repetition, and other learning strategies unlikely to be useful for achieving the higher-order cognitive objectives that teachers proclaim. A number of research studies have demonstrated that students study differently for objective tests than for essay tests and that the methods of study used for objective tests are not effective for long-term retention or use of the material learned. One of the great educational liabilities of large lecture classes is the tendency to rely exclusively on objective tests for grading. Even one good essay question may make a difference in student learning.