The exam effect

After most midterms and exams, particularly after difficult ones, I often find myself doing one of two things: dissecting the exam with friends to see how I’ve done, or speculating on how fairly the exam is going to be graded, and whether it will be curved. In the last couple years, when learning about psychology in general and effects of different external factors on tests in particular, I’ve often wondered whether or not that research should or could be applied to real life testing situations.

If you’ve ever taken one of the really big standardized tests like the SATs, the LSATs, or even federal and provincial exams, you might have had to fill out an answer sheet detailing your sex/gender, your ethnicity and your citizenship status. Should we really be asking students to do this right on the exam forms, immediately during or before testing? Studies in social psychology show negative effects on math tests for female students when their gender is made salient to them before they sit the test, and the same thing happens to students with minority status.

Is it then ethical to ask these questions to students during testing? If there is supported research that shows that a certain way of testing students negatively affects a portion of those students, shouldn’t it be altered to create a fair and equal testing environment?

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