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I think you have to verify that cheating did not occur in order to verify if they have learned the ethics espoused by the course. Tests function to prevent thos

I think you have to verify that cheating did not occur in order to verify if they have learned the ethics espoused by the course. Tests function to prevent those who have not understood the course material from claiming they have. In that situation verification of truthfulness is required before you can verify their skills

catapart 3y ago
That assumes that a student is incapable of understanding the ethics without being able to practice the ethics. I think you would have a high bar in proving that to be the case. A lot of people do shit they, personally, find unethical, so long as they can square it with their own contexts of exceptions. The provided test tries to have it both ways, but that's invalid. If they are supposed to be learning the answers to the questions on the test, they can prove that even if they looked those answers up. But if the test is to not look up answers and then they get a score reflecting their ethics, then the class is meant to make more ethical students; not to have more people understand the answers to the questions on the test. At best, you could make the case for the ethical test being a component to the class. Give it a rigorous score, just like you do for any other answer on the test (pass/fail seems reductive, in this scenario, but it's reductive for a lot of tests answers, so whatever. bless the teachers who give partial points). But verifying what a student KNOWS does not, in any way, involve what ACTIONS they take.
- 6D794163636F756 3y ago
  You make a lot of good points and it's made me think that there is a fundamental assumption that tests are useful. I think that that is not the case. As you said this test attempt to both validate knowledge and ethics and ends up invalidating itself. It seems to be a flaw intrinsic to this style of test. I have taken some very well constructed tests. They were not takehome and only one was multiple choice (it was a systems class so it became sets of binary answers which became more than multiple choice). I think that ensuring the integrity of answers in necessary for gaging learnings from a test like this but that need, as you've implied, would indicate that the test is the wrong tool
  - catapart 3y ago
    I think you're right in that most test aren't useful for what they are trying to assess. And that you can't validate anything that you can't trust the integrity of. But I think the takeaway is that "critical application" is what constitutes a valuable test. In math, that just means "can you use the procedures of mathematics correctly, resulting in the correct answer?" But in, say, English, memorization has very little value. A valuable test would be in testing whether or not a student can match events in a dramatic story to, say, modern real world events and critically discuss the similarities and differences. And, unfortunately, writing that out clinically and expecting a student to both understand it and be able to do it on command while under pressure of failure is not exactly conducive to positive results. So English tests really shouldn't look anything like Math tests, once you get past the point of memorizing definitions. The same is true of all disciplines. Tests should be generated (and often updated) based on what is currently useful to the discipline in a real and practical sense, at a fundamental level, and then on a more philosophical or exploratory sense once you get into higher learning.

catapart 3y ago

That assumes that a student is incapable of understanding the ethics without being able to practice the ethics. I think you would have a high bar in proving that to be the case. A lot of people do shit they, personally, find unethical, so long as they can square it with their own contexts of exceptions. The provided test tries to have it both ways, but that's invalid. If they are supposed to be learning the answers to the questions on the test, they can prove that even if they looked those answers up. But if the test is to not look up answers and then they get a score reflecting their ethics, then the class is meant to make more ethical students; not to have more people understand the answers to the questions on the test. At best, you could make the case for the ethical test being a component to the class. Give it a rigorous score, just like you do for any other answer on the test (pass/fail seems reductive, in this scenario, but it's reductive for a lot of tests answers, so whatever. bless the teachers who give partial points). But verifying what a student KNOWS does not, in any way, involve what ACTIONS they take.

6D794163636F756 3y ago
You make a lot of good points and it's made me think that there is a fundamental assumption that tests are useful. I think that that is not the case. As you said this test attempt to both validate knowledge and ethics and ends up invalidating itself. It seems to be a flaw intrinsic to this style of test. I have taken some very well constructed tests. They were not takehome and only one was multiple choice (it was a systems class so it became sets of binary answers which became more than multiple choice). I think that ensuring the integrity of answers in necessary for gaging learnings from a test like this but that need, as you've implied, would indicate that the test is the wrong tool
- catapart 3y ago
  I think you're right in that most test aren't useful for what they are trying to assess. And that you can't validate anything that you can't trust the integrity of. But I think the takeaway is that "critical application" is what constitutes a valuable test. In math, that just means "can you use the procedures of mathematics correctly, resulting in the correct answer?" But in, say, English, memorization has very little value. A valuable test would be in testing whether or not a student can match events in a dramatic story to, say, modern real world events and critically discuss the similarities and differences. And, unfortunately, writing that out clinically and expecting a student to both understand it and be able to do it on command while under pressure of failure is not exactly conducive to positive results. So English tests really shouldn't look anything like Math tests, once you get past the point of memorizing definitions. The same is true of all disciplines. Tests should be generated (and often updated) based on what is currently useful to the discipline in a real and practical sense, at a fundamental level, and then on a more philosophical or exploratory sense once you get into higher learning.