[Edu-sig] Python Programming: Procedural Online Test

[Laura Creighton]

In a message of Sun, 04 Dec 2005 11:32:27 PST, Scott David Daniels writes:
>I wrote:
> >> ... keeping people at 80% correct is great rule-of-thumb goal ...
>
>To elaborate on the statement above a bit, we did drill-and practice
>teaching (and had students loving it).  The value of the 80% is for
>maximal learning.  Something like 50% is the best for measurement theory
>(but discourages the student drastically).  In graduate school I had
>one instructor who tried to target his tests to get 50% as the average
>mark.  It was incredibly discouraging for most of the students (I
>eventually came to be OK with it, but it took half the course).

<snip>

'Discouraging' misses the mark.  The University of Toronto has professors
who like to test to 50% as well.  And it causes suicides among undergraduates
who are first exposed to this, unless there is adequate preparation.  This
is incredibly _dangerous_ stuff.

Laura 

>--Scott David Daniels
>Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org
>
>_______________________________________________
>Edu-sig mailing list
>Edu-sig at python.org
>http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig