The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/news/2005/09/16/english_comp_exam_changes

September 16, 2005 > News > Faculty Senate to consider English Comp Exam changes

Faculty Senate to consider English Comp Exam changes

By Risa Gordon | Thresher Editorial Staff

The Faculty Senate will consider the future of the English Composition Exam at its open meeting Wednesday.

An online exam, graded by instructors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a few other Boston-area instructors, was offered for the first time this year, but students did not receive their scores from MIT until after Orientation Week course registration.

MIT graders scored the online exam because the English department voted in August 2004 to stop grading the exam, Director of the Composition Exam Linda Driskill said in a written report to the Faculty Senate and administrators.

Passing the exam or completing ENGL 103: Introduction to Argumentation and Writing is a graduation requirement. Prior to this year, students took a pencil-and-paper exam during Orientation Week. This year, students were advised to take the exam online during one of two testing periods over the summer. Students had about four days to read information on a specified topic and another 56 hours to read a prompt and write an essay response.

About 80 percent of new students took the exam online. Students who did not take the exam over the summer were given a written exam during O-Week.

In the past, English department faculty and graduate students graded the pencil-and-paper writing exams in one afternoon and evening.

However, in August 2004, the English department notified Provost Eugene Levy that it had voted to stop grading the exam, Driskill’s report on the English Composition Exam states. The topic was referred to the University Standing Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum, which considered the issue in Fall 2004, but ultimately the matter remained unresolved, the report states.

In June, Levy met with Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman, Dean of Humanities Gary Wihl, English Department Chair Susan Wood and Driskill to discuss the exam, the report states. At the meeting, they decided to use an online examination and outside graders.

“At the time, there just didn’t seem to be another alternative that was readily available to us,” Driskill said.

Chair of the Undergraduate Curriculum committee Bill Wilson said the committee met once in the spring, at which members discussed using the MIT graders. But the committee did not move forward with planning because of logistical problems, Wilson, an Electrical and Computer Engineering professor said.

“I hope we will be able to make a decision earlier [this year].” Wilson said.

Ten schools are currently part of the MIT/Microsoft iCampus alliance, a consortium of schools using the same software package to administer English competency exams to new students. This year’s test was administered on a trial basis for Rice and was provided free of charge, Driskill said. MIT agreed to grade this year’s exams for about $76 per student, Driskill said.

Driskill said the English Composition Exam is also fundamentally flawed.

“The system has made people feel as if they don’t have to work on anything if they pass the exam,” Driskill said. “People who don’t pass are treated badly by their peers and upperclassmen.”

The report recommends the Faculty Senate alter the form of the English Composition Exam and consider suspending the exam until decisions about writing at Rice are made in conjunction with the Call to Conversation.

The report also states the English Composition Exam is neither a true exit exam nor a true placement exam.

“At the very least, the Faculty Senate should separate the exit exam and the placement exam and make decisions that are compatible with the curriculum in the future,” the report states.

The exam results

Rice received the online test results Sunday, Aug. 21 — the day after O-Week ended — Driskill said. Driskill then told representatives from the colleges that students could view their results online, and she sent written notifications to students Monday, Aug. 29.

Driskill said the delay in notifying students directly resulted from the time it took her to determine which students were at which college. Comments about each student’s essay, which will be used for academic advising, will be posted within the next three weeks, Driskill said.

Driskill said exam grades from the two testing periods were returned at the same time because MIT used a supervising system to ensure grading across different exam administrations was equitable.

Students who took the on-site exam during O-Week but did not pass were told they could take ENGL 103 in the spring semester or later. Students who took the online exam and thus did not know how they fared were told to register for ENGL 103 based on their own confidence in their writing ability, Driskill said. In past years, only students who earned a “not satisfactory” score on the exam could take ENGL 103. This year, any student can register for the course, Driskill said. As of Wednesday, 49 students were enrolled in three sections of ENGL 103, compared to the 47 students who took the course in Fall 2004.

Lovett College freshman Kyle Kelley enrolled in the course and later found out he passed the exam.

“I had no idea what English at Rice would require, so I wanted to take the class to make sure I had a strong foundation in writing,” Kelley said.

Of the 788 new students who took the composition examination, 656 took it online. Driskill said she thinks more students would have taken the exam online if they had been notified about the exam earlier in the summer.

The number of students who received a score of pass was higher this year than in previous years, Driskill said. This year, 43 percent of students received a “pass,” compared to about 35 percent of students in previous years, Driskill said. Usually, about 50 percent of students receive “low pass,” but this year the figure was 40 percent.

The number of “not satisfactory” scores given out each year varies between 10 and 20 percent, Driskill said. This year, 17 percent of students who took the exam received this score. Driskill said the percentage of students who received low pass scores was slightly lower last year.

The percentage of students who passed the online exam was higher than the percentage of students who passed the paper-and-pencil exam: 46 percent versus 30 percent. The number of students who received “not satisfactory” scores was lower for students who took the online exam — 15 percent — than for students who took the pencil-and-paper exam — 25 percent. More students received “low pass” scores in the online examination than in the pencil-and-paper examination. Driskill said she did not know what accounted for the differences in scores between the online tests and pencil-and-paper tests.

As of Wednesday, three students and parents of two students had complained that the exam results were not indicative of the student’s writing ability. Students who are unhappy with their scores can request a regrade by three Rice faculty members. If the appeal is unsuccessful, the student can petition the University Standing Committee on Examinations and Standing. Students can protest until the end of the semester, Driskill said. Typically, about 12-15 students protest their evaluations each year, Driskill said. However, students may be waiting to protest until they are able to view the written comments, she said.

Driskill said the online exam has several advantages over the traditional pencil-and-paper version, including the length of time available for preparation and writing.

“One benefit is that the exam gives you a situation much more like university writing,” Driskill said.

Hanszen College freshman Jessica Fowler said she appreciated the extra time the online exam allowed.

“It was a lot easier [to take the exam online],” she said. “I’d rather have a lot of time to plan [my essay] than rush through it with a lot of stress.”

End of article

Back to top