After a year and a half of online schooling, students tense for old-fashioned testing

It’s been over a week since school began, syllabi have been read, we are already in the throes of it and yet, some testing concerns remain unanswered. Namely, what will the transition from a year and a half of online and overwhelmingly open-book testing to in-person testing look like?

Even with the aid of notes, and in some cases the internet, it wasn’t exactly like students thrived while testing. That being said, now that the testing aids may no longer be available, it seems certain many students will struggle. Perhaps this is an indication that they don’t need to. 

Open-book testing provides students with the ability to understand content beyond memorization and regurgitation. This has been the main mode of testing for a few semesters now, and it seems students aren’t learning any less, they’re just learning differently. This isn’t a bad thing. 

For some time, testing days have looked very different from the clammy-handed and fidgety classrooms of yore. Instead, I’ve spent the last few semesters taking tests in my pajamas in-between laundry cycles. Now it seems some professors expect me and others to go back to scantrons and blue books like I haven’t tasted the sweet milk of freedom. 

In all honesty, it’s not just about the change in atmosphere that in-person testing will entail, it’s the different ways of learning that are involved in the two modes. 

Some may be familiar with Bloom’s taxonomy, a framework developed by Benjamin Bloom to show different skills and abilities ranging from the simplest to the most complex. On the most simple side of that spectrum is remembering and recalling facts. Then we move on to ever more complex skills: understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. 

The old fashioned model of memorizing a large amount of information and spitting it out on a test falls into the simple category of remembering and recalling.

I wish I could tell you what I learned in my freshman anthropology class where we had 100-plus question study guides to memorize, but I can’t. Why? Because I wasn’t trying to understand or analyze what I was learning, I was only concerned with keeping the answers transcript-style in my head long enough to take the test and then inevitably forget everything. 

Open-book testing meant professors often had to frame questions in ways that implemented critical thinking. Students had the facts in front of them, but it was the ability to evaluate these facts that they were being tested on. 

Lorna Falconnier, a junior majoring in anthropology has experienced both in-person and online testing in her time at North Dakota State. 

Thinking about the transition back to class, Falconnier said, “I think it would be a little bit more challenging [than open-book testing] because I have slight test anxiety so just going into the room to take the test would be the difficult part.”

She’s not alone in this. The American Psychological Association estimates anywhere from 14 to 25% of college-aged students suffer from test-anxiety. Take a stroll around campus during finals week, and whether it’s test anxiety or regular anxiety, I don’t envy most students as they begrudgingly head to their finals.

As far as learning via the HyFlex model, Falconnier discussed the benefits of having resources available during tests, “I did actually learn better because I was actually trying to do it for myself.”

When students are so grade driven, like the memorize-and-move-on model forces them to be, learning becomes a chore and only a very surface level one. When students are given the autonomy to gain knowledge and understanding for its own sake, it’s much more valuable. Testing that encourages and rewards this deeper level thinking is beneficial for everyone.

Grades didn’t markedly improve during open-book testing, so this isn’t about ease. Instead, it’s about the continual transition towards a higher-level of learning, which is what most of us are here for anyways, right? 

Professors should not be moving backwards, but continuing to move forward with a classroom focus that seemed much more human and connected during the pandemic. 

Despite only interacting online, Falconnier discussed the change she saw in professor attitudes,  “I feel like teachers really just didn’t care about the rules, they were more concerned about what you were learning. Making sure you were comfortable in their class.”

Classes that prioritize connection and comprehension are to the benefit of students and professors alike. 

As Falconnier said, “I feel like there’s always ways that we can make it so that students understand that testing isn’t about getting a scantron and memorizing the right answers, it’s about making sure you understand your material.”