Many students having a bad grade just throw away their test and try to forget about it. But this is not how it should be!
Test correction allow students to learn from their mistakes, gain a better understanding of their grades and, allowing to gain back part of the lost marks, reduces the test's stress.
Test correction allow students to learn from their mistakes, gain a better understanding of their grades and, allowing to gain back part of the lost marks, reduces the test's stress.
How does it work?
When I mark a test giving students the opportunity of test correction, the only feed back they have is how much point they gain (for exemple 3/5). From that, they have to find how/where they loose their marks, understand their mistakes and/or their improper math writing. Then, they hand in their test back with a test correction that include an analysis of the mistakes made along with what they think is the correct answer. I check their new answer and see how much it would have been worth during the test. If it comes with a good analysis, they get back ½ the mark they lost. For example a good analysis of an exercise with mark 3/5 along with a well written correct answer (thus worth 5/5) gives back (5-3)/2=1 mark. However, the same exercise where the correction still miss something and is worth 4/5 along with a good analysis of the mistake discovered, gives only back (4-3)/2=½ mark.
Preparation & tools
Before giving the test: When I write my personal correction to a test, I try to have a particularly clear mark-scheme coming with it.This allows me to be effective and is anyway necessary for being consistent between the first and second correction.
For the students: It is important that the students understand what is expected from them. They tend to think that "I did not understand" or "I wrote ... while I should have written ...". Therefore, I started to use grading rubrics for the correction. It uses a 4 levels scale: 0, 1/4, 1/2 or all of the marks back. The the highest one can only be reached in really rare occasions. Also I introduced the 1/4 level for cases where I see efforts but still not a good analysis or if only part of the mistake is analyzed.
For the students: It is important that the students understand what is expected from them. They tend to think that "I did not understand" or "I wrote ... while I should have written ...". Therefore, I started to use grading rubrics for the correction. It uses a 4 levels scale: 0, 1/4, 1/2 or all of the marks back. The the highest one can only be reached in really rare occasions. Also I introduced the 1/4 level for cases where I see efforts but still not a good analysis or if only part of the mistake is analyzed.
Objections and response
Time consumption: One may argue that it demands double correction time. I would answer: not necessarily. The first correction is faster than a standard test correction as I have a clear mark scheme in advance plus I don't spend time writing feed back. For the second correction, hopefully the students have the correct answer so I just have to give few feed back on the analysis.
Plagiarism & too high grade: I don't use class time for test correction. This makes that student can get help from tutor, friends... But the same objection can be made about grading homework. I think student can benefit of discussing their errors with others and the analysis part make that they cannot just copy the correct answer from a friend. They still have to understand what went wrong. As for the possibly too high grades, giving test corrections makes that I can be little more picky on the writing of math. Also, I never allow test correction for the final exam which then can balance slightly generous grades. What I think is important is that students still keep in mind their original grade as this is what they were able to achieve in test condition. Finally, my experience shows that the final grade they achieve usually reflects better the student actual level.
Plagiarism & too high grade: I don't use class time for test correction. This makes that student can get help from tutor, friends... But the same objection can be made about grading homework. I think student can benefit of discussing their errors with others and the analysis part make that they cannot just copy the correct answer from a friend. They still have to understand what went wrong. As for the possibly too high grades, giving test corrections makes that I can be little more picky on the writing of math. Also, I never allow test correction for the final exam which then can balance slightly generous grades. What I think is important is that students still keep in mind their original grade as this is what they were able to achieve in test condition. Finally, my experience shows that the final grade they achieve usually reflects better the student actual level.
Remaining thoughts
I haven't find the ideal solution concerning what to do when an exercise is left (almost) blank. Right now, I see 2 different approaches:
- What I use to do: For the analysis part, I ask the student to explain what happened in his/her mind at the time of the test. Then he/she has to completely justify the answer by referring precisely to the results/theorem used, similar examples from the course or the homework.
- What I can try: Simply not allowing students to gain marks back on a blank exercise. To encourage them to not leave any question unanswered, I can ask them to, in case they don't know how to answer, write during the test what happens in their mind to use that as a starting point. Then still asking them to completely justify their answer as previously.