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When a measure becomes a target, the measure will be optimized at the cost of the actual target if the two diverge. If the measure is close enough to the targe

When a measure becomes a target, the measure will be optimized at the cost of the actual target if the two diverge. If the measure is close enough to the target that the easiest way to optimize the measure is to optimize the target, then you'll be fine. If the easiest way to get an A in arithmetic is to know arithmetic, then students will learn arithmetic. There is a reason the previous poster chose arithmetic as an example. It is very difficult to pretend to know arithmetic without knowing arithmetic. Can Romanians add, subtract, multiply, and divide?

alexvoda 5y ago
Thinking you can keep the two aligned is naive. There absolutely are ways to learn to pass arithmetic tests without learning to use arithmetic. It all depends on the type of test. During an oral test, 1-1 with the teacher, is close to impossible to fake knowledge. But with written tests, there are plenty of ways. Cheating (rampant, wide spread, by the way) in its various forms (asking a colleague, having a cheat sheet, getting the answers from someone who took the test earlier, etc.) is the most obvious and easy way but let's exclude it. A student can just memorize the exercises because the teacher didn't bother to create exercises unique to the test and reused them. Or reused them from a previous test. If it is a single answer multiple choice, a student might simply develop a bullshit detector and learn to spot suspect options. It is a wonderfully useful skill for test taking when the test is not antagonistic and intentionally trying to trip you up. There are so so so many options.
- chii 5y ago
  all of the issues you mentioned pertain to the method of testing. It's pretty well known that you need to have some certain quality in the tests - after all, the result of an experiment is only as good as the design of the experiment, and this is true in a testing context. But grading via a test isn't a problem here. A good test will show a correct grade, and a student who dont know the material, and cannot cheat, will not get a good grade. This grade is a proxy to the learning that took place - memorization is a part of learning. Of course, there's more to learning than _just_ memorization, such as creativity and problem solving (novel problem solving). These areas are more difficult to test (not impossible), and the metric is difficult to define for these areas, but none of that invalidates the tests that grade a student.

alexvoda 5y ago

Thinking you can keep the two aligned is naive. There absolutely are ways to learn to pass arithmetic tests without learning to use arithmetic. It all depends on the type of test. During an oral test, 1-1 with the teacher, is close to impossible to fake knowledge. But with written tests, there are plenty of ways. Cheating (rampant, wide spread, by the way) in its various forms (asking a colleague, having a cheat sheet, getting the answers from someone who took the test earlier, etc.) is the most obvious and easy way but let's exclude it. A student can just memorize the exercises because the teacher didn't bother to create exercises unique to the test and reused them. Or reused them from a previous test. If it is a single answer multiple choice, a student might simply develop a bullshit detector and learn to spot suspect options. It is a wonderfully useful skill for test taking when the test is not antagonistic and intentionally trying to trip you up. There are so so so many options.

chii 5y ago
all of the issues you mentioned pertain to the method of testing. It's pretty well known that you need to have some certain quality in the tests - after all, the result of an experiment is only as good as the design of the experiment, and this is true in a testing context. But grading via a test isn't a problem here. A good test will show a correct grade, and a student who dont know the material, and cannot cheat, will not get a good grade. This grade is a proxy to the learning that took place - memorization is a part of learning. Of course, there's more to learning than _just_ memorization, such as creativity and problem solving (novel problem solving). These areas are more difficult to test (not impossible), and the metric is difficult to define for these areas, but none of that invalidates the tests that grade a student.