Bernardo Sampaio de Saboya Albuquerque is a third-year undergraduate student from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. At UBC, he is enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts program, studying political science and English.
The first snowflake of winter is yet to fall, but last semester’s past exam season is still sending chills down our spines. The dreaded months of November and December are the ones in which we all slowly start to lose our minds trying to finish up pending assignments, midterms, catching up on what we missed and, inevitably, studying for exams. But before you think about that, let me tell you a little story.
My second year was a turbulent one. I was struggling with classes and above all, struggling to fit myself into a major. Midterms were not great, and when finals season came up, I had this premonition that I would fail all my courses or at least remain at the mediocre level of C’s all around. There were two courses that semester that stood out, both were economics, but two different forms of assessment. Course A consisted of a traditional final exam worth 50 per cent of my grade (criminal offence), while course B offered a presentation analyzing an economic paper related to the course content, worth 40 per cent of my grade.
I was faced with a dilemma: while I strongly oppose finals weighted 50 per cent or more, public speaking is one of my biggest weaknesses. I worked as hard on both, and in the end, the final ended with a C+ while the presentation ended with an A+. My experiences with both forms of examination got me thinking. In the end, I came to the conclusion that, relative to exams, papers and project-based assignments provide a more meaningful and practical measure of student learning. They foster creativity and skills that are essential for real-world success and personal growth.
A case for alternative assessments
It has been my experience that projects and papers stick with you, while exams just feel like hoops to jump through. Pause for a moment: try to remember a particular final exam and its contents. Now try to remember big projects or papers you have written.
I am willing to bet that most people will remember much more clearly the process and content of the paper/project.
Why is that? Projects push us to take what we learned in books and apply it to real scenarios and problems, encouraging hands-on learning, persistence and creative problem-solving. Papers and projects do something special: they let us dive deep. They allow us to connect the dots between ideas that don’t seem related but are. We engage with theory learned in the lecture rooms within the creative and exploratory tendencies of our own minds.
That is the kind of substance that helps you think on your feet, solve problems and get ready for what’s out there in the job market.
And it’s not just students who benefit. Teachers get to see more than just how well we memorize facts. A study conducted by Griffith University reported, project-based assignments saw an improvement in academic performance as well as a more pleasant learning experience.
Remembering something is not the same as understanding it. Plus, schools that pump out grads who can think and do — they stand out. They are the ones who end up known for preparing students who are ready to hit the ground running.
External factors
Struggles don’t discriminate. Everybody struggles. It is a universal part of the human experience. For lack of a better term, life sucks. Life presents continual challenges, with negative experiences seeming to lurk around every corner, particularly during pivotal times like exams. It’s not merely the hours of dedicated studying that predict success, with external factors often playing a crucial role.
Amid a growing mental health crisis, sometimes we have to prioritize ourselves over any other obligation we might have. Struggles like depression and anxiety are draining and distracting and can make it tough to retain information and study appropriately.
As well as mental health, physical health can be just as detrimental to your performance in an exam. We’ve all been there. Not feeling great, fatigued, headache, coughing, runny/blocked nose — the only thing that one wants to do in that situation is lay in bed under some warm, cozy blankets and get some shut-eye. Sitting a final exam under these conditions is simply not ideal. Not only is it distracting, but it can also ramp up your anxiety, especially if you feel like you’re bothering others.
If all that was not enough, the pressures of daily life are also a factor in academic performance. Family responsibilities, such as looking after younger siblings or dealing with household tensions, can steal time away from your studies.
Financial worries are another burden. Stressing over tuition fees or affording textbooks can take up so much of your mental space that there’s hardly any room left for learning.
One of my fondest memories of my second-year was the first lecture of an economics course where the professor had asked if anyone had purchased the textbook. One of the students told him that it was not yet available in the bookstore and mentioned the price tag of $170. The professor answered with the following phrase: “Oh wow. That is blatant extortion.” This guy gets it.
Not all bells and whistles
It would be foolish of me to argue against the exam methodology without recognizing its worth. Exams have been around for a very long time, and it is still a popular, if not the primary, form of assessment in most academic institutions. In theory, they are objective and require fewer people to mark them, saving a lot of the little time professors and TAs have as well as getting results back to students quickly.
It is easy to think that STEM disciplines would be better suited to final exams since they deal with precise, quantifiable and usually not argumentative answers. However, especially after the pandemic where modifications to assessments had to be implemented, evidence started to float that even in such fields, project/research-based assessments are still viable and efficient, as identified by a recent study at Stanford University.
I strongly believe that a more holistic approach to academic assessment will result in positive student outcomes. Minimizing stress and external interference creates a more even playing ground, and methods that prioritize deep learning, creativity and practical application that will help students in the long run, and hopefully defeat the “I will do just enough to pass the exam” mentality (don’t lie, we’ve all thought that).
Educators and administrators should come together and continue looking into ways to modernize assessment so that education still remains challenging and requires hard work, but develops skills that a final exam might not.
This is an opinion article. It reflects the contributor's views and does not reflect the views of The Ubyssey as a whole. Contribute to the conversation by visiting ubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion.
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