Onafhankelijk magazine van Tilburg University

18. Science & School
text Charlotte van Raak illustration Bas van der Schot
Univers
22 maart 2012
New examination policy:
end of the mercy marks
For some time now, the quality of
exams in higher education has been
subjected to heavy criticism in the
media. At TiU, a new examination
policy framework is being set up.
What does this system entail?
The ‘saving six’ became the subject of intense debate
after research by a couple of journalism students,
who looked into bad practices in higher education,
became public. The research turned out to be unrepresentative
for the entire education system, but the
underlying question still remains relevant: how does one monitor
the quality of examinations?
The various schools at TiU differ a lot when it comes to quality
of grading. When comparing their various examinations regulations,
it turns out that Law students will be less tempted to try
their luck at a resit than students of other schools. The grade
that counts is the grade that was acquired last.
At the School of Humanities, various regulations apply to various
courses. Only Liberal Arts students will see their higher grade
vanish when their resit turns out to be less successful. According
to Olga Zweekhorst, Manager Educational & Research Institute
and secretary of the Examination Committee of the School of
Humanities, this can be attributed to the way how students make
use of their resits. “Resit regulations have been uniformly established.
Because the Liberal Arts students took resits far more
often than any other group of students, even when they had already
passed, the work pressure for teachers became too high.”
New policy
In 2011, a working group was set up at the university, assigned to
come up with a proposal to develop a general university-wide
framework for an examination policy. Minimum requirements will
be developed for exams. This should ensure the improvement
of the quality of examinations in all courses. The new guiding
principles for examinations are validity, reliability and transparency.
Exams will have to correspond with educational goals and
should, as a measuring instrument, provide reliable results. Apart
from that, both teachers and students should be able to obtain
the information necessary for grading and sitting an exam.
The need to strengthen the examinations policy is, according to
Zweekhorst, caused among other things by the recent negative
publicity concerning a few Hogescholen (Higher Education Institutes).
More and more, it has become important to guarantee
and monitor the quality of education. Zweekhorst also expects
students to definitely profit from the increased transparency of
exam regulations.
Not too strict
Olga Zweekhorst does warn that a situation could arise in which
this examinations framework is made compulsory, and would tie
the hands of the teachers. “Education should be dynamic and
stay that way. Uniform guidelines on grading exams and theses
will give students a better idea of what’s expected of them. However,
that doesn’t mean that all exams should faithfully adhere
to one and the same mould. Such a rigid system contains the risk
that the system in question may be unsuitable for the course or
the students themselves. Offering a variety of types of exams,
such as written and oral exams, assignments, multiple choice
and essay questions, ensures that students won’t be judged
badly overall for not scoring well in one specific type. “For teachers,
it’s also important”, says Zweekhorst, “to retain a certain
level of freedom to choose the way in which they measure the
level of knowledge their students have acquired.”
She also thinks it’s unnecessary to, as a rule, submit each exam
to the examinations committee. Rumors about teachers who
deliberately award higher or lower grades in order to avoid any
discussion with students are not applicable to Tilburg University,
she thinks. It is indeed conceivable that a situation could arise in
which students are tempted to pressure the teacher into giving
them a higher grade. “I can however not imagine a single teacher
going along with that. It does not fit into the general culture at
Tilburg University.”
A new examination system is already well on its way. It will be
implemented gradually. In five years all courses should have a
model of specifications, by means of which teachers are able to
draw up and assess examinations. The end of the mercy mark is
nigh.