Page 11 - DEDU504_EDUCATIONAL_MEASUREMENT_AND_EVALUATION_ENGLISH

Unit 1: Educational Testing and Assessment : Concept, Context, Issues and Current Trends

(ii) Questions do not cover the major portion of the syllabus. Notes
(iii) Chance element predominates.
(iv) Questions mostly encourage memorisation and cramming.
(v) Options are very often provided. Students are asked to attempt any five or six questions out of
ten questions (usually this is the number).
(vi) Directional words like ‘State’, ‘Describe’, ‘Explain’, ‘What do you know’ and ‘Interpret’ make
the question paper vague. Answers vary to a considerate extent.
(vii) Students depend upon ‘guess work’.
(viii) Marking becomes very subjective.
(ix) Standardization of marking becomes very difficult.
Limitations

• Lowering of Moral Standard : Examinations teach the students different ways of becoming
dishonest. Books are smuggled in the examination centres and attempts are made on the life
of the supervisors who try to catch the students using unfair means.
• Ignoring Qualities of Character : They fail to provide any measure to test the originality,
initiative, truthfulness, honesty, sociability of an individual and thus they fail to test real
education. “Training in originality and independence of thought, correctness of judgement or
reasoning, responsiveness to noble ideas and sentiments and enjoyment of beautiful things -
these cease to be the aims of teacher’s effort for they are not judged by the traditional
examination. Examination is the sole aim and cram the sole method.
• Subjectivity : Subjective attitude of examiners influence the marks of individuals and leads to
a great variability in marking. Vernon points out, “The same script might receives a different
mark if read after instead of before dinner.”

• Heavy Mental Strain : Most of the students are in the habit of working strenuously just near
the annual examination and this severely tells upon their health, leads to mental dyspepsia
and discourages the formation of healthy mental habits.
• Develop Frustration : Failures in examinations lead to frustration and even to suicides in
some cases.
• Heavy weightage to verbal ability in many tests.
• Difficulty in obtaining level norms.
• Relative narrowness of the traits measured by tests.
• Indifference, lack of attention, low commitment and generally low motivation of the students,
tending to invalidate the test results.
• Difficulty to follow the directions of the tester by the testee.
• Undue influence of socio-cultural conditions or environmental influences on the testees or the
students.
• Low validity and reliability in the case of some pupils.
As a matter of fact, the examinations have met with heavy criticism from all quarters. This criticism
is due to the excessive domination of the examination system and a large number of students subjected
to it. Candidates complain against the examination system because of its harmful influence on
school work; the parents denounce it because of its mental strain; the teachers against the examination
because of its injurious effect on the physical and mental health of the children; the practical
psychologists speak ill of it because of its unreliability and invalidity and the educational theorists
attack it because of its lack of definiteness in aim and purpose.

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