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Feedback

At first I thought it was amazing. I would give an exam one day and go over the answers the next meeting of the class. Especially if a number of students missed an item, I would review the material in order to explain the correct answer. Then I would give the same item on the final, and many students would still miss it! They remembered their first answer better than my correction of it. Since that time, I have always left time to go over the correct answers immediately after the students finish taking an exam. Doing so presumably interferes with consolidation of the wrong answers, and it also gives the students some immediate feedback about their score. However, very few professors understand the importance of correcting errors right away, and so you will have to make special efforts in an attempt to insure that correct answers supersede your initial wrong ones. The best way to do this that I know is to try to remember both answers.

For example, consider the multiple-choice item 8.8.7. The first time you take the item, you choose "get it right." You then learn that the correct answer is "make the same mistake." What you can rehearse is the statement, "I used to think students who missed an item would get it right the next time, but actually, they are likely to make the same mistake again. That sounds pretty dumb to me." If you can remember both answers, you are more likely to get it right the second time around than if you only try to remember the right answer.


next up previous contents
Next: Cheating Up: On Taking Exams Previous: On Taking Exams
Derek Hamilton
2000-09-05