Can we get practice questions like the exam? Exploring student expectations and assessment preparation

Abstract

The perceived misalignment between practice questions and graded assessments can lead to student frustration and discouragement (Osterhage et al., 2019), as well as concerns over fairness. However, students often resist engaging in activities fostering metacognition, particularly in courses where students commonly attempt to use memorized patterns to solve problems (Avena et al., 2021). As a result, students often ask that exams have questions that “are the same as or similar to those solved in class”. Recognizing that mismatches between student expectations and experiences will impact retention (Maloshonok et al., 2017), effort has been undertaken in STEM higher education courses to introduce exercises that foster the development of metacognition (Stanton et al., 2021). To examine differences in expectations between students and faculty in the graded assessments, we implemented exam wrappers in a large-enrollment (311 students) introductory genetics course. To gain further insight, we are conducting interviews with students and instructors from similar courses nationally. In this session, participants will be invited to examine the themes emerging through the analyses of the exam wrappers and our interviews, consider alignment with their own pedagogical contexts, and share strategies to address perceived misalignments with assessments. We aim to develop a student-centred framework to foster metacognitive problem-solving strategies in the post-COVID era. Please note that we will be making use of Mentimeter – please bring your devices with you! This study was performed with ethics approval