MOVING TOWARDS EDUCATION WITHOUT EXAMINATIONS

Education 2047 #Blog 02 (19 MAY 2020)

The global COVID-19 pandemic has slammed brakes on the academic cycle  at a time when the students were ready to go for the end semester/year examinations besides lakhs of school-leaving students aspiring to pursue professional/ higher courses, waiting to take competitive examinations/ tests. The stunning unprecedented scenario has sent academicians into a huddle thinking hard about the options to conduct the examinations. As embedded presently, examinations serve as checkpoints for both the learner and the certifying bodies and in handing them out an acknowledgement that a certain level of education (sadly not the competence or proficiency) has been acquired. But is it not striking that education content and delivery have changed over the last two centuries, but examinations have not? By examinations in this blog, I refer to the proctored test of fixed duration conducted by an authorized/ certification body and demanding recall of predetermined content, in the answer sheets. Sadly, the efforts these days, as evident from the array of webinars on examination/ online courses, are about how to stop copying of answers instead of getting better answers and hardly anyone speaks about the assessment of everything else that makes a graduate well-rounded!

The idea of examination seems to have percolated into the education system, geared up as it has been for mass production of trained workers aligning with the needs of the industrial age. Examinations in the education (prescriptive learning as I would call) that we have had, have been extensively used for facilitating clearing the grades, upwardly progression, conferring degrees, admitting people into elite folds etc, basically for grading, segregating and labelling scholars. They have also been used to admit students whenever the supply has been overwhelmingly higher than the demand and in the process created a highly competitive, at times cut-throat, environment that rejects the majority.  What's more striking is that each individual is admittedly unique and different in the terms of abilities, proclivities and capacities, yet the same yardstick or battery of tests is used to grade each individual and label her/him as passed or failed. Can a human pass or fail? Only an object meeting or not meeting predetermined parameters can. So do examinations fit into the learning process and academic transactions? Why not check a person for what she or he can do? Why identify a person with what he cannot do or is lacking in? Should not there be an assessment of what the person can improve upon in further? Why not empower a person to chart her/his own learning trajectory that aids in unleashing the full potential?

Before delving deep to explore answers to these questions, let’s see if the term “examination” itself is the right word or expression at all. One examines an object against set standards and finds it deficient or conforming to them and labels them accordingly. Health of a human can be examined because the vital parameters of a healthy human have been found to be within a certain range and soundness of a body can be declared by recording the vital parameters and comparing them with range. Can the same be applied to declare or certify the level of knowledge with the same set of questions administered to tens, to hundreds and to even thousands of students? Certainly not, and the word “examination" therefore, should be reserved for use in the context of inanimate objects and “assessment” be used for humans, possibly with a befitting adjective, as we shall see later in this blog.

Having denounced the term examination, as we understand it in the context of education, let us see why examinations (or tests) exist there in the first place.  Examinations have been there as tools or interventions because the knowledge was not readily accessible as and when needed until recent decades, for application to "just in case" situations and committing it to the memory (even without associating with the real world) was the only option. Therefore, it was quite appropriate to, after a course had been administered, check whether a student had added things to her/ his memory or not, and will be able to or not- recall to use it “just in case” situation. Here came in the limited-hour examinations to serve like dipsticks, to gauge and ensure that memorization of information was up to the order or not. While the dipstick serves as an excellent tool for checking the capability of a person to memorize, it is not a credible pointer to sound comprehension.

Examination, in a way, gives an assurance that education has been acquired so much to the hardened belief that those who were able to reproduce with accuracy, were in a better position over others in applying that knowledge needed “just in case”. And that’s how high scorers have been privileged to better opportunities in higher studies and jobs. Certainly then with a large number of aspirants for the coveted goals, every single mark counts in the competition, and all humans go rat. Alas!  Examinations to create competition, to admit some and reject more, and expect people to collaborate at workplaces; surprising and shocking too! In this knowledge age, when the same knowledge is accessible in equal measures to anyone with access to the internet, do examinations really aid in learning? Are weekly/ monthly tests or biannual/ annual examinations still relevant?  Let’s try to see the things retrospectively and also try to put things in perspective and see how useful (or useless) the examinations that we currently have, are.

We all have arrived in the knowledge era and can feel that knowledge stands democratized, for the first time in human history, thanks to the internet, communication and display technologies. The knowledge accessible to one person is accessible to anyone, anywhere and anytime, that too at a click of a button, at an oral command, swipe on the screen, or even a gesture (and soon with brain-computer interface, brain implant technologies maturing, even the present mediations will vanish).  A deep retrospection reveals that all through the past, resources of all types were used to create or generate knowledge, preserve it in books (and libraries) and its, dissemination though multiple agents including teachers, schools and colleges. It was also about gaining knowledge, amassing it, retrieving it and getting into even deeper layers to add more to it and the entire education system built around it. Clearly, it was more of knowledge creation from resources all along, than resource creation and the equation was tilted in favour of the creation of knowledge than resources. But in the knowledge era with near assured, equitable access to all sources of knowledge, creation of resources from the knowledge that we have around us- is gaining traction and it is nothing but “innovation”! Are our institutions, courses, teachers, curriculum and examinations as they are presently- designed and aligned to support innovation? Let’s attempt a reality check.

Education is now happening also outside the class-rooms, learners have knowledge of the universe accessible on their palm, teachers are what libraries have been to us to be connected with only when we need, the joy of learning is found in hackathons, cafes and on-the-go. Things have really started flipping as we talk about flipped-classroom- which has mainstreamed the online learning. A teacher-centric education system is flipping to be a learner-centred one. The purpose of education is understood as not for creating jobs but for creating opportunities (jobs included), for unleashing the potential of a learner; a shift if not flip!  Driving this polar shift are technologies, a number of them growing at an exponential rate; it is no more in electronics that we see Moore’s law being followed- of doubling the numbers of transistors on a chip every 18 months. We have examples from disparate domains- the cost of DNA sequencing, the cost of solar power, cost of 3-D printing etc, seem to be following the same progression. When these technologies are inducing changes and poised to disrupt the education, should not the utility (and futility) of the examinations (as we conduct now) be subjected to review?  Let’s see some unsavoury side of examinations, shorn of any innovation as they are, when “innovation” resonates.

The examination (as delineated earlier in the blog) expects students to regurgitate what is there in books or has been taught by teachers, with best possible accuracy. Let’s admit that this quest to reproduce, prompts the students to copy in a bid to score over others. What makes it worse is that students get initiated, with due support of clueless teachers, into this mindless quest from grade/ class one itself! Thus copying, though abhorred, becomes a way of not only learning but also an aid to upward mobility by way of "clearing" or "passing" examinations. Also, the faculty of imagination, critical thinking and creativity get ruthlessly muzzled as the entire focus is on solving/ recalling the known. With the ease of conducting tests, posing one (or few out of fear of copying) set of questions to a large number of examinees, pro-scoring questions, multiple-choice questions (MCQs), established styles (read decipherable patterns) and also inertia built over decades, the experiential learning through practicals (field activities, internships etc. that connect head, hands and heart), has been put on a very low pedestal- the worst thing to happen in education!  Isn’t it ironic that, past the higher/ professional education received after “clearing” examinations, we expect the employees at workplaces to be ethical and persons of integrity; taught only inside-the-class to be out-of-the-box thinkers; those made to follow strictly the instructions and not to question, to be visionaries? What a gap between reality and expectations!

Instead of making a question paper that tests known knowledge and expects a learner to pass during the course of education, what we need is to give a person is a learning experience which will always be accompanied by failures, opportunity to correct by self and most important of all, connect experience with theory (and not the other way). Yes, failures need to be appreciated as an integral part of learning, which the current examination system fails to (and is inexorably harsh to the failed) and is, therefore, all the more a reason to be junked away. Interestingly, it is now found (discovered in alumni meets) that while those who succeeded in scoring high in the exams were able to get highly paid jobs and opportunities in higher education, the students who were not able to memorize things are now emerging better off as innovators, entrepreneurs or job creators largely because of their ability of organization, interpersonal skills, and in making good use of resources available whether knowledge or the human resource. A point to be noted, while conducting an examination of the examination system and its (ir)relevance too!

Taking cognizance of the low employability of technical graduates and aiming at a turn-around, as part of its initiatives to improve the quality of technical education, AICTE has formulated an Examination Reforms Policy, with Bloom’s Taxonomy at its heart. The taxonomy proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom (recently updated) includes six levels of learning which can be used to structure the learning objectives, lessons, and assessments of the course. The revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in the cognitive domain includes thinking, knowledge, and application of knowledge. It is a popular framework in engineering education to structure the assessment as it characterizes complexity and higher-order abilities. It identifies six levels of competencies (Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating and Creating) within the cognitive domain considered apt for the purposes of education. While remembering is recalling from the memory of what has been learnt, understanding gets reflected from ability to explain ideas or concepts. Applying is seen through the ability to use the information in another familiar situation and its higher level, analyzing shows up with the ability to break information into the part to explore understandings and relationships. Further, evaluating is justifying a decision or course of action which is topped by the ability to generate new ideas, products or new ways of viewing things i.e, creating.

Bloom’s Taxonomy is hierarchical, which means that learning at the higher-level requires that skills at a lower level are attained, a fact that needs appreciation to overhaul our examination system. At present, the first three learning levels; remembering, understanding and applying and to a small extent, the fourth level analyzing, are assessed in the examinations/ tests administered for a limited time. Abilities like analysis, evaluation and creation which really turn a graduate into a professional cannot be assessed by the examinations that we conduct and can only be assessed in extended course works, projects, etc. There have been attempts, concerned about the over-emphasis on rote learning, to include questions to test higher-order abilities, but the intent still remains scoring higher marks over better learning. The employability of passing graduates then remains questionable as examinations fail to comprehensively assess them on other graduate attributes which never get reflected in degrees.

The AICTE Policy emphasizes that assessment must test higher-level skills viz. ability to apply knowledge, solve complex problems, analyze, synthesize and design. Also the professional skills like the ability to communicate, work in teams, lifelong learning that matter for employability of the graduates more than ever. The Policy proposes "open-book examination" as a solution which is less taxing on memory and can fulfil the requirements of a degree/ diploma/ certificate issuing body. Open-book examination is time-bound, designed in a way that allows students to refer to approved material while answering. They are particularly useful to test skills in application, analysis and evaluation, that correspond to higher levels of cognitive skills in Bloom's Taxonomy. The Policy recommends the use of Rubrics as a tool for assessment and grading of student work, being a transparent and inspiring guide to learning. Rubrics are scoring, or grading tools used to measure a students’ performance and learning across a set of criteria and objectives. They communicate to students (and to other markers) the expectations in the assessment, and what is considered to be of importance.

The Examination Reforms Policy comes at a time when knowledge is freely available for creating resources, opportunities for more knowledge, which requires the skill of higher-order beyond remembering and comprehension. Towards its implementation, faculty across technical institutions are being made aware of the reforms and encouraged to work in teams to prepare questions for testing the higher-order cognitive skills. It is expected that other examining bodies (Boards/ Polytechnics/ Universities/ Training Institutes), across all levels (Primary/ Secondary/ Higher) and formats of education (conventional/ open/ distance/ online/ continuing), would pull up their socks and to pioneer changes. The COVID-19 shock throws, an opportunity to reset the examination button as we have presently, which smacks of academic lethargy on one hand to anachronism on the other. Yes, we need to profusely infuse into the courses- generous dosage of projects, open-ended experiments in laboratories, project-based learning modules, co-curricular experiences, internship experiences; a portfolio of experiences, etc which allow acquisition of disciplinary knowledge along with other abilities.

Even as the AICTE policy gains traction on the ground and picked up by other examination bodies, it makes a lot of sense to look at the limitations posed by the current global pandemic- going online for delivery of learning content with no option to exercise and that of social distancing in real learning spaces. It will be in the fitness of things that we resolved and stopped altogether asking questions to check the memorization skills of the students at least in higher education to begin with. Also, it would be apt to shift focus from examination to assessments, built-in to help the learners chart their own learning path and advance at their own pace- personalized and adaptive learning, aided by technology of course. This means departure from placing examinations as ladder-steps for upwards mobility in academic or professional spaces (for which open-book examinations are recommended). The questions to test lower-order skills must be left for use in the classroom discussions/ quizzes, or embedded into online courses or can be outsourced completely to the teaching/ learning machines which can adequately take care in an independent and impartial manner, the learning needs of the students. Also the practice of holding proctored limited hour examinations must be stopped if at all we are serious about the learning of the education to be impactful, for the simple reason that what needs to be remembered gets actually tested automatically if the questions are properly framed and are aimed at testing the higher-level cognitive skills. Ever wondered how many answer-sheets filled-up in limited hours get thrown away every year (and also cost us 6.6 million trees in India, as per my back of the envelope calculation),  with answers that have neither contributed to knowledge nor to ideas nor solutions!

The questions of higher-level skills will, by design, be open-ended, with no known answers and will require awareness of the world around in general and in that subject in particular and skill to use search tools. These questions need not be answered in a fixed duration and can be from a couple of hours to few days, evaluation of whose answers should be left to be done using rubrics, by the peers, teachers and even practitioners. The advantage of such a practice would be that the learners come to know about the views of peers, understand their side, and begin to appreciate them rather than forcing their own views and prepare them to collaborate than compete. This unburdening approach to the teachers would ensure that learners start having a world view and develop an inclination for the same rather than harbouring their own views and persisting with them. After all, from the education system as a supply-line of workforce, we expect people of integrity, with work-place ethics and trained to collaborate and be productive.

When higher education institutions change the gear, schools should not be left behind in giving up the examinations they have been conducting. There have been attempts to supplant questions aimed at testing higher-order thinking skills but their purpose gets smashed by the limited time. Furthermore, the shift in 90+ scores leaning towards 100 in the Board examinations in recent years only indicates how the system is working more for the same. The pandemic blow gives us the best opportunity for the secondary school level examination bodies, to take full advantage of mainstreaming of online education and open up the choice of subjects to the learners as wide as possible. One needs to be mindful of the technological advancements happening on an unprecedented pace, enhancing the uncertainty on the future skills. The secondary schools must prepare the kids smart enough to be prepared for a career and skills that are yet to emerge; not really 90+ scoring kids but smart learners- the ones trained to learn on their own, agile and resilient too.  This requires moving away from memorization of knowledge to its application, from fixed syllabus to open questions, from fixed-hour tests to exciting challenges and from memory tests to problem-solving. In the process of alignment of educational systems and subsystems to deliver comprehensively in this knowledge age, it would make enormous sense, to instead of teaching, testing, grading (A-F) and certification in 5 odd subjects, consider exposing a learner to 10-20 subjects+ skills+ competencies and issue a certificate with all that a learner scores A in. Let examinations, constrictive and restrictive as they are on abilities and passions, not be a leash anymore, gagging the potential of a human.

At the primary school level, there must be no examinations/ tests and memory testing be built into games, physical activities and social engagements, so that young mind can explore the world freely and encouraged to be imaginative. This for sure, will groom them to be good observers, responsible thinkers and quick learners when they move to secondary and higher levels, at least free of tendency to copy or cheat; which of course, aids in assimilating human values better. At the upper primary level, the students can be empowered with tools that help them bring out their talent and abilities and whet their appetite for knowledge and fire-up the passion. It is at this level that technologies must be used to help each student to delineate and create their own learning path, encouraged to pursue in what she/he wish to excel in (and not what schools or its teacher can teach or examine). Fortunately, it is possible to do that with Information & Communication Technologies, Display & User-interface technologies, Internet Technologies, Computational technologies, Simulation & Modelling technologies whose costs are only going to sink. The challenge, however, would be for teachers who are fast losing their role as disseminators of knowledge, to be that of confidants, counsellors, pathfinders, and navigators to the young learners and shall have to be trained accordingly.

In a world that is abounding with information and knowledge and its access becoming easier and easier, there is no need to accumulate everything in the memory; instead, the time should be spent in gaining experiential learning and connect things/ experiences with theory which resides in the memory longer. It would make enormous sense now to train the students and arm them with skills, along their learning pathways to learn how to convert knowledge and resources into something better, offer clever solutions, improve things around and make lives better and for this reason, higher/ professional education should be recalibrated. Here the learners should be assessed for how they attempt the problem and not on actually solving the problem besides how they document. This would not only discourage copying as the answers are not known but also make learning an engaging exercise and not repulsive. In fact, low-order questions in higher education should be treated at par with publication in a lowly journal. For the purposes of degrees/ certificates, open-book examinations should be resorted to, unburdening as it would be to the students, teachers and the system alike.

The entire education system now needs to be rebuilt to aid innovations- allow room for students to be imaginative and creative, build infrastructure and ecosystems for the same, train the teachers to be key enablers of the ecosystem innovation, enliven curricula with real challenges and replace examinations with “personalized and adaptive assessment”. In short, in our quest to move to higher versions of Education 4.0 or 5.0, examinations focusing on testing of lowest cognitive abilities should be outsourced to machines (can be embedded in the online learning material) or left for classrooms. For middle level, rubrics could be the right tools with the involvement of peers and teachers while for the highest levels of cognitive abilities, the assessment can be best done by the person/ agency for which evaluation or creation is done or by the professional bodies. For academic requirements (for issuing the certificate or degree which is losing relevance to nano-degrees now), as mentioned earlier open-book examination is an option which can take care of all levels of cognitive skills; and for employment (which should have a strong pull from the recruiters), the testing part should be left to the employer who can look for right aptitude, knowledge and competencies in the candidates. Let’s move from the age of “same question-same answers’ to “same question-different answers” in the examinations, to source more ideas to support and spread the culture of innovation- as a way forward to a self-reliant India!

***

Author is an Adviser with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on deputation from Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC).

Views are personal and readers may find them biased towards Science & Engineering Education.

Feedback/ comments are appreciated and can be given in the comment box below. Thanks!

Other blogs

Dismantling Macaulay's Schools with 'Online'  Support 

Disruptive Technologies in Education and Challenges in its Governance 

Synallagmatic Industry- Academia Linkages

TECHNOLOGY ROADMAP FOR EDUCATION 2035 BY TIFAC (Highlights)

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×