Examination-type preferences of college science students and their faculty in Israel and USA: A comparative study

School Science and Mathematics, Jan 1997 by Zoller, Uri, Ben-Claim, David, Kamm, Steven D

The science-examination preferences of college science students and their science faculty were surveyed, using the TOPE questionnaire at a teacher training and a community college in Israel and the U.S., respectively. The results obtained in the two countries were "intrally" and "interly" compared, in total and by gender, in terms of significant/no significant differences in the preferences made and the reasons provided by the students and faculty for their ranking. The findings suggest that: (a) college science students prefer mostly, the Israelis more so than the Americans, the nonconventional, written exams in which time is unlimited and any materials are allowed; (b) American college science students prefer the traditional class science examination (G) significantly more than their Israeli counterparts; (c) the preference of higher order cognitive skills (HOCS)-oriented exams (B, I and H) is significantly higher for female science students in Israel compared with no gender difference concerning the preferred examinations in the US, and rejection of oral examinations by all in both countries, significantly more by female students; and (d) there exists a significant gap between the preferred type of examinations of science students and their faculty in both countries. In view of the HOCS-orientation and the goal of conceptual understanding in current reforms of science education worldwide, the consonance between these curriculum objectives and examination practices is advocated. This, in turn, requires that provisions be made to lessen the gap between science teachers and their students' examination type preferences for better science learning to occur.

Two major trends are driving current efforts to reform science education. One is a belief that it is vital for our students to develop their higher order cognitive skills (HOCS) in all academic disciplines (Raudenbush, Rowan and Cheong, 1993; Zoller, 1993) and the second is the belief that students should construct a deep conceptual understanding of any scientific topic they study, rather than simply learn to apply useful algorithms to problem sets (AAAS, 1989; Zoller, Nakhlea, Dori, Lubezky and Tessier, 1995). Both of these learning objectives should be targeted at by teachers and students alike as partners in the common interactive teaching-learning process. Any progress towards the attainment of the above superordinate goals would require the application of new teaching strategies that would mesh with these desired learning outcomes. Clearly, examinations as well as other assessment means must also be consonant with these goals (Zoller and Ben-Chaim, 1990; Zoller, 1993). The crucial issue is how to translate the above into appropriate, manageable, effective courses, curricula and valid HOCS-type examinations in the service of the reform.

One of the pressing topics within the realm of science education reform is that of assessment (Kulm and Malcolm, 1991). The latter is needed for facilitating the evaluation of students' performance in terms of HOCS (Zoller, 1993) and conceptual understanding (Smith, Blakeslee and Anderson,1993), and to serve as both an index of the teaching goals' attainment and a formative means for revising/remediating the teaching strategies and examination strategies accordingly.

Despite the emerging consensus on the urgent need for education reform in general and science education reform in particular(AAAS,1994; NSTA,1993), a sharp contrast exists between the current visions of educational excellence and currently institutionalized patterns of educational practices (Raudenbush, et al., 1993). Examinations, in particular, persistently remain the most regressive in this respect (e.g. Blinn,1993/94) and in dissonance with the current HOCS orientation. This study was guided by our conviction that:

1. The development and acquisition of HOCS by our students should be a major instructional goal in science education.

2. Examinations-as an integra lpart o fthe teaching-learning process-should not only be in consonance with the teaching/instructional goals, but should also, meaningfully, contribute towards the attainment

of these goals (Zoller, 1993). 3. Students and teachers alike should not only actively participate in the teaching-learning process, but should become partners in it in order for the current reform in science education to succeed.

However, we found in previous studies (Zoller and Ben-Chaim, 1988; Ben-Chaim and Zoller, 1995) that although teachers are aware of their students ' examination-type preferences, they persist in giving their students their own "pet"-type examinations. Being convinced that (a) a crucial precondition for the improvement of science teaching and learning is the matching of teaching experiences (assessment/examination included) with the particular needs and preferences of the learners, and that (b) science assessment should be in the service of the current reform in order for the latter to be materialized (Kulm and Malcolm, 1991), we have undertaken this comparative study. We have purposed at comparing the examination-type preferences of college science students and their professors in Israel with those of the US, countries differ culturally with centralized and decentralized educational systems respectively. We assumed the existence of a gap between students and faculty examinationtype preferences and purposed to reveal this gap via research. Making the science faculty aware of this gap will, so we argued, lead to an appropriate action in the "desired" direction (i.e., closing the gap). Such a research-based evidence will, hopefully, encourage the use of HOCS-oriented examinations-if indeed preferred by students-by their science teachers for the improvement of science teaching and learning.