Carlos Manuel Gamazo de la Rasilla, Fares Ibrahim Sami Amr, Javier Gamazo,, University of Navarra, Spain
The university students and the assessment
The so-called "Bologna Plan" caused concern among professors and students. It was clear that the university teaching needed improvements and experts got down to work. The word "competencies" emerged from the wave of innovative ideas. New values were emerging in the face of the traditional university immobility: interpretation, integration of concepts, expression, critical sense....
"Bologna" should also mean assessing according to these values, yet this is not the case in most cases. It is surprising that the objectives of the subjects contain competencies that are then poorly evaluated or even ignored. Are we in breach of contract? And, in the same vein, can these competencies be assessed with any subject exam, can they be assessed with a test?
Some researchers with teaching tasks feel that teaching distracts them too many hours from development of science, their main work and vocation; therefore, they perceive the evaluation process as a stolen time, as well as tortuous. When teachers are questioned on the reason for their evaluation practices and adjustments are proposed, they often wield the Freedom of Chair as a weapon to settle the matter; such use of it not only does not contribute anything positive, but denigrates it. If we look into its origin, we will realize that its creation was fundamental so that the progress of the university would not depend on the vicissitudes of the history of political power. Therefore, it is advisable to update its raison d'être and to restrict it so as not to fall into licentiousness. The professor must adhere to rules that at least do not escape from good moral and rational conduct. Anything that deviates from these guidelines could be considered disrespectful to student body.
It seems reasonable to state that assessment should be used to measure the competencies acquired during the course. However, the student encounters styles of assessment that have nothing to do with the evaluation of the competencies but with the convenience of the teacher. In this way, the ranking established among students is not based on training but on report in the short term deadline on a given day at a given time. Kafkaesque, since, nowadays, and even more in the future, all information is available in a few seconds through the Web. Professionals have computers at their place of work at work. Specific data can be consulted quickly, but what they will not be able to consult so immediately is how a case, a problem, should be solved.
A student who is not able to solve a problem, to understand a process, to establish a logical reasoning, does not fulfill the desirable competencies. A fact, a figure, a name out of context has no value. The report is not enough to understand the meaning and its sense: why, what for, where from or where to. A good preparation of student must be based on the integration of concepts. The application of knowledge is what will help us financial aid to solve future unknowns. In real life, acting with logic and coherence when making decisions will take precedence.
In any case, it does not seem right that in the final examination a test is presented as a filter, that is, if you do not pass the test part, they do not correct the second part, the argumentative part. Here it is evident that what is intended is to save effort in the correction of exams, since they could also do the reverse: if you do not pass the argumentative part, I do not correct the test. And let's not forget the picaresque. The exams subject test are the most borrowed, or even sold, in exam times; there are not few times that students use them because, too often, they are aware that the teacher repeats ad nauseam the same questions year after year. Multiple-choice tests can only be justified in certain circumstances and contexts. In most cases, subject tests are set without criteria and their only purpose is to facilitate the teacher's work. At final, they are often a fraud in terms of their primary goal , the fair assessment. It seems reasonable that if thousands of individuals are to be tested simultaneously and objectively, the excellently designed test is an option to consider, but this is not the case in most universities. The university owes its raison d'être to the student; therefore, it must be fundamentally a projection of the student and his or her needs. In order to develop as a professional, in our rapidly changing reality, he or she will have to be trained in the acquisition of skills that will enable him or her to create. It will not be enough to know how to use existing tools.
At final, assessment should not be a nuisance, a boring chore, but quite the opposite. There should be nothing more gratifying for a teacher than to see how his students have acquired the skills he wanted them to learn on the first day of class. An exam should be corrected like a thriller, with passion, not laziness, and, above all, with respect.