With a cup of freshly brewed coffee in my hands, I head for the stairs that lead to the computer, printer and stacks of readings - readings that are highlighted, marked with post-its and their margins full of hand-written notes. My wife, baby in arrns, calls after me, "ls this a crunch day? Do you want breakfast at the table or do you want H down there?" I am off to write my final STP and I arn actually looking forward to the task, a task that is assessment, but it's more than that, it's also a learning experience. I am not stressed, but I am excited. Why am I excited? Two reasons come to mind imrnediately. First, I do not have any final exams. Second, the task itself, writing the STP, is inviting. This paper will examine why these two factors might account for my excitement.
What is wrong with finals? Finals week is normally filled with enough stress to last a lifetime and I won't be participating this quarter. That's enough to make me (and most college students) excited. Why are most methods of assessment (usually meaning exams) and finals in particular, so stressful? To a large extent, the students do not feel that their assessment will be based on effort, understanding or achievement, but on how well they compared to other students. These assessments, based on social norms, focus the student's attention on rankng and on dernonstrating "superior capacity" instead of focusing on competence or ability. Nicholls argues that these types of exams, where students are graded on a scale and ranked, are ego-involving. The measure of success on this type of exam is not effort and ability, but rather one's ability to demonstrate "relative superior capacity." Galto describes the constant evaluation, ranking and judgment that students receive in school from "certified officials", as a lesson in "provisional self-esteem" that eliminates self-evaluation. This dependence on the judgment of outsiders (instead of self or parents) to determine one's self-worth is, in itself, stressful.
Nicholls states that during ego-involved situations, which are norrnatively difficult, students who believe they have high capacity will expect to succeed. Because they expect to succeed (demonstrate superior capacity) they will experience "relatively little threat" (stress). During finals, however, college classroorns are filled with students with high capacity who perceive enough threat to become stressed. There are many possible reasons that capable students perceive final exams as a threat to their ability to demonstrate superior capacity. One reason is the real chance,that for any variety of reasons, they may not perforrn at their peak. They could be ill, tired, hungry, need to use the restroom or simply have an "off" day. Most traditional classes do not provide the student a second chance on exams and many exams, especially standardized tests, operate under restrictive time constraints (Wolf). These constraints require the student to be "on" peak performance at precisely test time, no exceptions.
A second source of stress during conventional assessment is the testing methodology itself. Conventional assessment often involves requiring the student to provide "brief snippets" of information to answer questions that have been decontextualized. Operating under the guises of time efficiency and "objective" standardization, these tests have eliminated the "subjective" elements of knowledge. These testing methods bring into question their ability to predict perforrnance outside the scholastic setting and as well as their ability to assess "deeper understanding" (Bruner). During a week of final examinations, a student is likely to be required to divulge a vast number of "brief snippets" that cover an enormous body of inforrnation covering a number of distinct disciplines. This type of assessment often requires the student to "cram" for exams. "Cramming" vast amounts of unrelated, undeveloped information into what Norman might describe as primary memory, does not represent effective learning. This information is subject to rapid loss or interference when the student attempts to recall the information. The fleeting nature of this kind of rotely learned, superficial knowledge, adds to the anxiety of the student who is about to be tested on his recall of that inforrnation. Traditional classrooms often present and test for more information than the student can effectively absorb in the time allowed. It requires time to develop the schemas (Norman) or structured patterns (Bruner) that represent effective learning. Students are seldom given the time and exposure that is required for real learning to take place.
What is right about STPs? I am going to teach school and I want to be an effective teacher. That means I want to learn more about teaching than about my own test-taking shlls. I know when I sit down to write an STP, I will leam as I write, defining and refining my own beliefs. That is exciting. The STP is the kind of assessment that Wolf promotes - assessment of knowledge and a learning process. It is also what Nicholls defines as task-motivated in that my purpose is to gain mastery of the subject matter, not to show mastery that is superior to my classmates. Additionally, the fact that the papers are graded as check or no-check eliminates much of the inter-student competition and minimizes the ego-involved motivation that often diminishes the gratification that comes from effort and achievement.
Nicholls states, "If learning is to be meaningful, it must answer questions that are significant to the student." In this same vein Wolf adds, "It is of cardinal importance that assessment is connected as a part of ongoing work that the individual sees as meaningful." The latitude of themes that these papers give, allows students to find importance and relevance, of their own, in each group of readings.
Knowing that rewrites are permitted takes away some of the pressure that often accompanies standard exams. If I struggle getting my thoughts clearly defined on paper, my grade will not suffer. As long as I understand the material, I will eventually succeed in demonstrating that understanding. The teacher's assessment of my STP work has tended to focus on content and substance. This allows me to continue concentrating on concepts rather than processes. As Sommers says, the teacher's comments can take the student's attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text, but the comments I have received have been fair and explicit. This treatment fosters continued leaming and keeps my focus on understanding the material instead of the testing process.