An analysis study by the State Planning Commission (SPC) has shown that the quality of question papers in arts and science courses in six state universities in Tamil Nadu require large-scale improvement.
As per the study, titled “Evaluation of semester-end question papers of state universities in Tamil Nadu”, most questions do not test the students’ ability to critically analyse concepts or apply them in real-life situations. They tend to mostly address the “remember” and “understand” dimensions of learning. Typographical and Tamil translation errors were also found.
The study mentioned that questions seldom probe the learners’ competence and cognitive abilities. It provides the details of identifying the levels of questions based on Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Under the arts stream subjects, including B.A. English, B.A. Tamil, B.A. Economics and B.Com, were picked for analysis. Under science subjects, B.Sc Physics, B.Sc Chemistry, B.Sc Botany and B.Sc Mathematics were chosen. A total of 288 papers were taken up for evaluation. Question papers of the last examination (2018-19), and the corresponding syllabi, were used for evaluation. This was done to avoid any possibility of using question papers whose standards maybe lowered due to college closures.
After discussions with educationists and visits to higher education institutions, the SPC zeroed in on Ayya Nadar Janaki Ammal College (ANJAC), Sivakasi, which undertook the evaluation of arts and science course examination papers. The SPC, in its report, mentioned that this institution has a history of working on question papers in line with the revised Bloom’s taxonomy for their internal examinations.
THE KEY FINDINGS
The analysis threw some interesting insights. For instance, in the fifth semester the fiscal economics paper (of a particular university) had no questions pertaining to K5 and K6 levels. K1 accounted for 15.4% of the marks in the question paper, K2 was 56.2%, K3 was 19.2%, while K4 accounted for 9.2%. A student can clear the exam with the ability to recall the basic understanding of the subject. However, the paper did not reflect the expected outcomes of the course and there was no scope for out-of-the-box thinking. The paper was finally given an “unfit” grade.
At another university, the B.A. English paper did not even mention the course code or the title of the paper. The same university had incomplete questions in its B.Sc Mathematics paper and its B.Sc Botany paper had questions which were worded “awkwardly”. The B.Sc Botany paper of another university had questions aimed at addressing only the slow learners. Many of the universities did not consider “Time Budgeting” and did not include questions that would bring out the creativity in students.
The SPC report has given some recommendations too. “Examiners should be trained to design question papers that align with the specified levels of revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to assess the students’ knowledge and understanding across all levels of cognitive complexity,” it said.
It also highlighted that increasing the share of higher order questions may lead to a higher failure rate among students if done immediately. “There should be a gradual movement towards increasing the share of marks that can be obtained only through the exercise of higher order skills. For example, it can be increased from 10% to 50% over a period of five years, with clear guidelines to teachers on how to train students to take on questions with higher-order skills,” it suggested.
Given the fees charged for examinations across universities, there is ample scope to invest in improving the quality of examinations through better incentives for paper-setters, scrutinisers and academic auditors.
