To Scantron or Not To Scantron: That is Not a Multiple Choice Question

I am teaching the wrong subject. While I love exploring reading, writing, and speaking with kids, grading all those essays is long and laborious.

I just turned in my grades. Of course, my students wrote essays for their finals. While I was grading, my daughter came in, looked at me and commented, “Most of my finals are scantron.” I asked what percentage of her tests were objective multiple-choice tests. She estimated about 80% of each of her tests, other than English, were objective questions answered on an electronic form. I asked myself, could I score an essay that way?

We give final exams by period of the day. First period is first and so on. However, years ago we did it differently. We used to give the tests by subject and English always went first. The rationale was that, since English teachers are giving subjectively graded written tests, they should have more time to grade.

As the years went on, teachers objected to English’s favored final status. They claimed that they too had subjective areas on their tests and needed additional time to grade. As a result, we went to a rotating system where departments traded that coveted first day slot.

The results were interesting. When English was not on the first day, English teachers began to ask students to prepare their finals at home and turn them in prior to finals week. Some shortened their tests or created more objective tests with quote identifications and short answers. It was very irritating to see many non-English teachers post their grades within a few hours of giving the exam.

So finally (pun intended), we landed on our present system of giving the tests by period of the day. It does ensure that English teachers will get their grading load distributed across the week. It still galls me to see the kids gather at other teachers’ doors to see their grades when I still have a huge stack of papers to read.

Yes, I know that other subjects are more content driven. It is easier to test them on the facts they can memorize, the problems they can solve, or the vocabulary they know. Because that would make my life so much easier, I often ask myself at these grating times of the year, why can’t I do that?

The answer is the skills I am teaching cannot be measured that way. My job is to teach them to read, write, communicate and, ultimately, think. No multiple-choice test can do that as well as a good old-fashioned writing sample. My final exam should be the culminating activity of the semester. What have we done? We have read books and analyzed them. We have written essays, papers, poems and notebook entries. We have discussed, given speeches, and debated. Is the use of a multiple-choice test an authentic way to assess students for those skills? I wish it were.

If scatron testing doesn’t work in English, should it work elsewhere? Should an objective test be the culmination of a semster’s study? In a world where facts change rapidly , we can look things up in a matter of microseconds, and computers do our calculating, are these kinds of finals the best way to teach? While memorizing has its place, is it the most important skill our children should master? The final skill?

While these are great questions, I have grading to do. If someday technology invents a scantron system to grade my essay, I might consider it. Until that happens, I don my glasses, rub my neck, and pick up my pen.