Some students know the material and just can’t work the problems quickly enough.
I had that problem in college chemistry. I always had trouble completing the test in the allowed time. I had to waste valuable study time reworking homework problems in timed drills.
I worked some of those problems 5 times. Drilling over and over.
Total bs. I knew how to balance those chemical reactions. I just couldn’t write down all the steps fast enough.
I had the potential to be a Chem major. I liked chemistry and found it very interesting. The bullshit long tests made that impossible for me. My hands would cramp for an hour after a chem test. Gripping that pencil and writing non-stop
15 mins would have made all the difference. Unless the teacher added three more problems to the test. Jerks!
So where did this idea that “female candidates might be more likely to be adversely affected by time pressure” originate? I mean, I get that they covered their asses by saying “might be,” but I still wonder if this is based in any sort of statistical/scientific fact.
Professors know exactly how many students ran out of time. If six students didn’t finish and 5 were female. What conclusion would you draw?
It’s obvious by looking at the steps in the student’s work. If every problem is worked logically, and the last couple aren’t touched. That student knew the work and ran out of time.
That’s different from a student that doesn’t really know how to work the problems. They sit there trying to figure it out. The steps will be wrong. Lots of eraser marks. They’re in over their head.
It makes no sense to punish a good student that writes slowly. Some of us know that work just as well as the hotshots that turn in tests 20 mins early.
I hated those students.
I was a lefty that was forced to use my right hand. I’ve always written more slowly than other people. It really becomes a problem in math and chemistry classes. The problems require so much precise and neat writing.
Indeed. Who gives a shit? If it takes slightly longer to get the right answer, I don’t care, as long as it’s the right answer. I mean, unless you have some sort of time-sensitive maths situation that you’re testing for, but in most cases, who cares about an extra 10-20% time? And I was always that student who turned in his test in first.
I don’t know why AK84 thinks it is a stupid idea, but I can tell you why I think it is.
The point of testing ought to be, imho, to ensure that the students know and understand the material well. At the same time the point of schooling in general ought to be to teach students to think well all the times, including under pressure.
An aside, it seems to me that schools have gone out of their way to remove any type of adversity for students. This leads, as far as I can tell, to a large number of young people getting out of school without the tools they need to succeed in the world. One of those tools is the ability to deal with adversity. Another one of those tools is how to handle pressure.
If the issue is that ‘female candidates might be more likely to be adversely affected by time pressure’ then the answer ought to be to figure out why female candidates are affected more by time pressure and work on that, the root cause of the problem, assuming that the statement is true. Which I doubt. (On a side note, if a politician/celebrity/etc had said something like ‘Women need more time to think as they are more adversely affected by time pressure’ it is likely that person would be attacked viciously for being sexist. Rightfully so of course)
As far as test taking skills go, that is a learned skill like anything else. And, contrary to what naita beleives, I believe that it is a good skill to have. Knowing how to evaluate a set of problems and create a plan on how best to accomplish the most work in the least amount of time is a valuable skill, inside work and out.
Two weeks ago I gave my kids a computerized math test, required by my district, along with a sheet of paper. “SHOW YOUR WORK,” I demanded, in keeping with what I’ve been telling them all year.
The test is adaptive (changes according to student responses), and shows progress from the beginning of the year. Four kids either showed minimal progress from the beginning of the year or actually dropped in scores.
So I called them over, showed them their scores, and showed them their nearly-blank work pages. “So, you conducted an experiment,” I told them. “I said you ought to show your work, and you decided to do mental math instead and see what happened. Take a look at what happened! Next week you’ll re-take the test, and I’d like you to conduct a different experiment: this time, SHOW YOUR WORK, and see what happens.”
Today I had them re-take the test. Of the three that finished, every one of them showed huge growth over their previous test. I called them back, showed them their filled-up page and their much-higher scores, and told them they’d tried a new experiment. “Do you see the results?” I asked. “Will you REMEMBER THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!”
There are certainly times where mental math is appropriate, but goddamn, kids are fine with not doing writing. I have almost never had to persuade a student to show less work. The challenge is almost always in the opposite direction. It’s insane to think that some elementary teachers teach their kids to do mental math as a default.
I think you make some good points, but I would counter by saying that tests are generally not the primary or most effective way to teach skills like working under time pressure. Tests are generally an assessment mechanism, not (primarily) a teaching tool. Certainly the final whatever exam is more of an assessment and a credential than it is a teaching tool.
When I used to teach test prep, I would absolutely teach students to take practice tests with 1/3 or 1/4 the amount of time they ought to have, because it teaches you about how to prioritize, recognize easy questions, etc. But as good a teaching tool as that is, I would not be in favor of reducing the time limits on standardized tests. Because the actual test is very high stakes, and reducing the time limit decreases the value of the assessment because it increases the variance of the results.
How do you know we’re not just suffering from status quo bias? There’s no particular reason why the time limit used in the past is the best possible time limit, and it’s possible that the best time limit, in terms of making the test a good assessment is longer than used in the past. Based on your argument, should we make the exam time shorter?
Certainly, there are cases in life where thinking on the fly and working under pressure are useful. But I think they’re far rarer than those where careful consideration and deliberate work are preferable.
I think the difference here is that the sort of math that you do in lower grades is generally the sort of math that you should ultimately be able to do in your head. So, the teaching technique is essentially to tell kids to do it in their head enough that they memorize it.
The technique changes not because of inconsistency, but because the subject matter changed. Most people should be able to do arithmetic in their heads. And most people should write down intermediate steps of algebra and trigonometry and calculus, because as complexity increases, correctness starts to become more important than speed and memorization.
If tests were these practical exercises that someone might actually have to face, then I’d agree. But that’s not what tests are. You never encounter as many problems as you do on a test in real life. At least, not within that time limit. Tests are artificial constructs that don’t reflect the real world. They just exist to test your knowledge of the material (which you are also learning in an artificial manner).
Furthermore, relying only on your own brain in the real world is a horrible idea. You should be looking up everything. For math, you should be using computers, even as far as using Wolfram Alpha. The bulk of your work is setting up the problems, not actually doing the math. With programming, rule #1 is to not reinvent the wheel. You should look for preexisting libraries and functions and everything.
Learning to work under time-limits is a real life skill, but testing just is too artificial to actually teach any of that.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the way it works after you graduate and get a job. There are no deadlines. Bosses never care how long it takes you to do a task. And there is never any competition for who does something faster.
I actually don’t see much value in doing arithmetic completely in your head. Sure, know your single digit stuff in your head. But multi-digit stuff is going to have to be written anyway, so why make it harder by trying to juggle so many numbers in your head? There is a limit to what we can remember at once.
I have to admit, I made it to AP Calculus and I never was required to do arithmetic entirely in my head. I admit I don’t cross out the subtraction as I write it, and didn’t always write in my carried digits, but I still wrote the steps down. Well, except when we could use calculators.
Multi-digit stuff should be estimated in your head. There’s lots of value in that in everyday circumstances, as a “sanity check” on numbers or calculations presented to you.
The government is spending $1 billion dollars on something? How much is that per citizen? It’s about $3.
You ordered 4 hamburgers at $2.79 + tax and the total came to $16? Hmm. Something’s not right there.
And so on.
It also helps you catch your own fat-finger or arithmetic errors. So many people just blindly punch stuff into a calculator and trust the result.
A lot of people are assuming this is an attempt to artificially increase the scores of women test takers. But I think it’s likely the opposite. I bet those math and computer professors did some statistical analysis of their students’ work and noticed that women are doing well on homework, but poorly on tests.
If women perform better on homework than they do on tests, then you start to consider what the differences between the two are. The obvious one is that tests are higher-pressure, and limited time. Hard to change the “higher pressure” part of tests, but limited time is easy enough to vary and see if changes things.
The other obvious difference between homework and tests is that homework is not observed, so maybe women are cheating more than men, or the homework collaboration policy results in homework not being a very good indicator of a student’s abilities.
I thought the way Oxford worked was that you literally took one round of tests at the end of your entire course of study. If this is that sort of test, then time requirements should be very generous because the pertinent question is whether or not someone has the skills. Whether they are fast worker or a slow worker is the sort of thing you sort out in rec letters, interviews, and on the job. But on no account should a person with the same skills be denied a degree because they can’t complete the assignment in an artificially timed environment. Those employers who really, really need quick workers who thrive under pressure can develop their own assessments for that. (For example, I had a student who had to complete a 100-question, 10-minute mental math contest when applying for a Wall Street internship when he was in college. That makes sense).
The other thing about the pressure part is that it assumes that men and women start the test under similar pressure - that only the time allowed and the test itself is contributing to the anxiety felt. But we know from years of research that women pursuing STEM fields have been both overtly and covertly discouraged and harassed - often intentionally and sometimes because of systematic bias. They might feel that their success or failure reflects on their gender, not on themselves - its certainly presented to them as such. So they are coming into the test with more pressure than the men.
I’m still curious what AK84 thinks, as the OP, but as far as your reasoning:
What expert analysis/insight do you have that:
a) ‘how students think under pressure’ is something that Oxford cares about (or ought to care about) wrt their testing, b) that the previous time allotted was the precise right amount of time to evaluate that skill, while an increase in 15 minutes means that the tests will be ineffective in evaluating that skill, c) that if there’s a theory that women struggle with time-based stress, why lenthening test duration as an attempt to test/redress this theory is a bad idea? Either it will have an effect on women’s outcomes disproportionately to men’s outcomes, indicating that in fact the amount of time alotted to complete the exams does effect men and women differently, and maybe we should look at how/why that’s the case, or it effects both men and woman equally (which, incidentally, seems to have been the case), in which case Oxford can evaluate the losses/benefits of that added 15 minutes and proceed accordingly.
“College is supposed to be tough” is such a vague, emotion-driven, detail-free position that it’s hard to take a position seriously that uses that as an argument.
How tough is it supposed to be? Is Oxford too tough? Too easy? Just right? Assuming that the status quo is somehow the optimal solution just because it’s the status quo is . . . well, I’m sure there’s some name for that logical fallacy.
Ultimately, it’s up to Oxford to decide what works for Oxford, right? I mean, do all universities have identical testing times/scenarios? Which ones are graduating students without the skills they need to succeed in the world? How are you measuring that? What is it about those institutions that is causing their students to be failures in the world? Is is that they’ve added 15 minutes to test duration X?
Eh, we’re talking about 15 min extra. If this small increase in time makes a significant difference in test performance, then it’s not a bad thing. But I doubt it really will. 15 mins goes by in a flash for students that have test anxiety.
I went to an engineering school for undergrad. In the math and science classes that beat me up the most, its unlikely my test scores would have improved even if I’d had unlimited time. In my experience, you either know the stuff or you don’t.
I realize that headlines/titles are often written by editors and not by the person who wrote the article/column. But that headline (“It’s insulting that female students at Oxford University are being offered special treatment”) totally misrepresents what’s going on. Nowhere in that article nor the one the OP linked to does it say that female students are being offered special treatment or held to a different standard than men.