Drake Law Faculty Bumbles Writing Exams, Will Students Suffer?

[ISUCKATTHIS]

Exactly Susan. Personal responsibility.  Drake gets $30k out of those students a year and they cant staple pages sequentially?

the school has a responsibility to provide students with accurate and complete exams

Also, you'll note that I mentioned that there may be ways to mitigate the damage, and if the school can come up with some way to do so, good for them.

You might also note that I proposed a procedure change that could help prevent such cases in the future, because, at this point, there's little that can be done. For the record, though, I hope the school can find some way to deal with this that accounts for the issue that is also as fair as possible to students who take the exam later.

I have never maintained that the school isn't responsible for the error; however, the students had the ability, and the responsibility to themselves, to make sure that their exams were complete and correct to the best of their ability. This is not a dramatic miscarriage of justice; it is an unfortunate administrative error, and one that yes, may affect individuals negatively. It is not fair that students who take the exam later won't have to deal with the hassle. But it is also not something that it should be difficult for students to detect and deal with in a manner that doesn't require some adjustment of the grading scheme for the exam after the fact because of a reproduction error that was obvious to everyone taking the exam. (And yes, one would hope that it was obvious to the person responsible for assembling the exams, but the fact remains that it was not caught.)

(emphasis added)

[Susan B. Anthony]

None of those statements are at odds with what I've said.

But I'm done here. Enjoy.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

http://www.activeherb.com/faq/ginkgo_faq.shtml

See, in particular, #10.

[goaliechica]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

[ISUCKATTHIS]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

That's a much harder question and I am not qualified to address it.  I'll take a stab anyway.

In order to answer this question comprehensively, you'd have to know how many students were affected.

Probably the best solution, if it is possible, is to curve separately those students taking the test under different conditions.  That would mean having a separate curve for all those students whose exams were misformatted.  The obvious problem with this idea is that there may be an insufficient number of such students to form a normal distribution. 

Another, less fair solution would be to re-weight the questions for all or a portion of the students according to their exam's format.  Students with the proper format would get the exams with the original weighting scheme, students with an improper format would get a weighting scheme that compensated for their misallocation of time during the exam.  This would mean de-emphasizing the latter two questions in the weighting scheme.

Finally, if all else fails, one or all of the following imperfect solutions could be applied:  1) the formatting and/or organization of essay answers to the latter two questions could be officially disregarded by the administration in the grading process (i.e., grading for content only), 2) students with misformatted exams could be given compensatory points or 3) the last two questions could be disregarded in the grading process.

[goaliechica]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

That's a much harder question and I am not qualified to address it.  I'll take a stab anyway.

Probably the best solution, if it is possible, is to curve separately those students taking the test under different conditions.  That would mean having a separate curve for all those students whose exams were misformatted.  The obvious probablem with this idea is that there may be an insufficient number of such students to form a normal distribution.  This would mean de-emphasizing the latter two questions in the weighting scheme.

Another, less fair solution would be to re-weight the questions for all or a portion of the students according to their exam's format.  Students with the proper format would get the exams with the original weighting scheme, students with an improper format would get a weighting scheme that compensated for their misallocation of time during the exam. 

Finally, if all else fails, one or all of the following imperfect solutions could be applied:  1) the formatting and/or organization of essay answers to the latter two questions could be officially disregarded by the administration in the grading process (i.e., grading for content only), 2) students with misformatted exams could be given compensatory points or 3) the last two questions could be disregarded in the grading process.

I have a strong suspicion that the number of students who consider themselves to have taken the exam under detrimentally different conditions is exactly one, but whatever. Cady said that the student was welcome to ask for a solution, but that most of the solutions were not going to be very adequate or reasonable. Which remains true.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

But, on second thought, Susan B is right.  There is absolutely nothing that can be done and those dickweasels who failed to correct their exam format deserve poor grades and resulting unemployment because they are losers.

[goaliechica]

But, on second thought, Susan B is right.  There is absolutely nothing that can be done and those dickweasels who failed to correct their exam format deserve to poor grades and resulting unemployment because they are losers.

 

That is exactly what anyone said. Yep.

[ISUCKATTHIS]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

That's a much harder question and I am not qualified to address it.  I'll take a stab anyway.

Probably the best solution, if it is possible, is to curve separately those students taking the test under different conditions.  That would mean having a separate curve for all those students whose exams were misformatted.  The obvious probablem with this idea is that there may be an insufficient number of such students to form a normal distribution.  This would mean de-emphasizing the latter two questions in the weighting scheme.

Another, less fair solution would be to re-weight the questions for all or a portion of the students according to their exam's format.  Students with the proper format would get the exams with the original weighting scheme, students with an improper format would get a weighting scheme that compensated for their misallocation of time during the exam. 

Finally, if all else fails, one or all of the following imperfect solutions could be applied:  1) the formatting and/or organization of essay answers to the latter two questions could be officially disregarded by the administration in the grading process (i.e., grading for content only), 2) students with misformatted exams could be given compensatory points or 3) the last two questions could be disregarded in the grading process.

I have a strong suspicion that the number of students who consider themselves to have taken the exam under detrimentally different conditions is exactly one, but whatever. Cady said that the student was welcome to ask for a solution, but that most of the solutions were not going to be very adequate or reasonable. Which remains true.

Well, you got me.  All possible solutions are totally unreasonable, inadequate or both.  

Must be true because you and Cady said so.  And because your "strong suspicions" are worth more than actual knowledge.

 

[goaliechica]

ISUCKATTHIS, can you please provide an affirmative proposal for what you think should happen?

That's a much harder question and I am not qualified to address it.  I'll take a stab anyway.

Probably the best solution, if it is possible, is to curve separately those students taking the test under different conditions.  That would mean having a separate curve for all those students whose exams were misformatted.  The obvious probablem with this idea is that there may be an insufficient number of such students to form a normal distribution.  This would mean de-emphasizing the latter two questions in the weighting scheme.

Another, less fair solution would be to re-weight the questions for all or a portion of the students according to their exam's format.  Students with the proper format would get the exams with the original weighting scheme, students with an improper format would get a weighting scheme that compensated for their misallocation of time during the exam. 

Finally, if all else fails, one or all of the following imperfect solutions could be applied:  1) the formatting and/or organization of essay answers to the latter two questions could be officially disregarded by the administration in the grading process (i.e., grading for content only), 2) students with misformatted exams could be given compensatory points or 3) the last two questions could be disregarded in the grading process.

I have a strong suspicion that the number of students who consider themselves to have taken the exam under detrimentally different conditions is exactly one, but whatever. Cady said that the student was welcome to ask for a solution, but that most of the solutions were not going to be very adequate or reasonable. Which remains true.

Well, you got me.  All possible solutions are totally unreasonable, inadequate or both.  

Must be true because you and Cady said so.  

 

I think it's time someone finally said it: your username is incredibly apt!