cornerstone

For years I've had an internal debate and curiosity as to whether or not schools are "getting it right" when preparing the minds of the future. My concerns lie especially in the test-centered orientation of education in America, and how it could be stifling the student's long-term retention of knowledge.
In my undergraduate Consumer Behavior class, I learned the difference between recognition and recall in product branding. Advertising is obviously more effective when the consumer can recall the brand name, logo, or slogan without any prompting, as opposed to simply recognizing it when reminded in some way. I soon made the connection that this idea also applies to learning.
Around this same time, the business majors at my school were given a national standardized test of what we were supposed to have learned from our business curriculum. While taking this multiple-choice test, I realized there was a lot of material that I remembered learning about, but I could not come up with the answer. Many of the questions I was able to answer only because the answer was displayed in the options below the question. Had the question been open ended, I would not have been able to recall the correct information; I was only able to recognize it. This had to have been one of the most memorably disturbing and eye opening events in my life. I was one of the top students in the program and if I didn't have the knowledge, who did? My test scores ended up being well above average; what did that say about the rest of the people going on to careers in business?
Are we really retaining any knowledge when our testing methods only require recognition? I realized I wanted to study the effects of this on the formation of the brain and effectiveness of learning. For me, this was an exciting brainstorm and new idea that no one in my life had ever discussed with me. At the time, being that I had made this connection on my own, I thought I was onto something new and could make advances in educational research in the future. A few years later, I was enlightened to the fact that all of this has already been researched and studied. Here are quotes from an article I just read on FairTest.org that confirms my long time suspicions and theories. I still want to take it further and get into the actual effects that this type of test-centered learning has on formation of the brain, learning skills, cognition, etc, but for now, these ideas are a supportive start :

Some people claim that multiple-choice tests can be useful for measuring whether students can analyze material...this sort of question short-circuits the thinking process it claims to measure...choosing the wanted answer would be a matter of recall for many students. For students who did not recall the textbook response, no information is provided to actually analyze the question and come up with the wanted answer...A question really asking for critical thinking would have students weigh evidence and defend a position...

[A]s students move toward solving non-routine problems, analyzing, interpreting, and making mathematical arguments, multiple-choice questions are not useful...multiple-choice items are an inexpensive and efficient way to check on factual ("declarative") knowledge and routine procedures. However, they are not useful for assessing critical or higher order thinking in a subject, the ability to write, or the ability to apply knowledge or solve problems...
the test result is not useful for improving instruction for the individual.

A standardized multiple-choice test may point to some broad areas that need improvement...However, the tests do not provide information that will help teachers do a better job of teaching [x] because they do not show why the class generally did not do well...

Relying on multiple-choice tests as a primary method of assessment is educationally dangerous for many reasons: What is easily measurable may not be as important as what is not measurable or is more difficult to measure. A major danger with high stakes multiple-choice and short-answer tests -- tests that have a major impact on curriculum and instruction -- is that only things that are easily measured are taught.
When narrow tests define important learning, instruction often gets reduced to "drill and kill" - - lots of practice on questions that look just like the test. In this case, students often get no chance to read real books, to ask their own questions, to have discussions, to challenge texts, to conduct experiments, to write extended papers, to explore new ideas -- that is, to think about and really learn a subject.

The decision to use multiple-choice tests or include multiple-choice items in a test should be based on what the purpose of the test is and the uses that will be made of its results...Students should learn to think and apply knowledge. Facts and procedures are necessary for thinking, but schools should not be driven by multiple-choice testing into minimizing or eliminating thinking and problem-solving. Therefore, classroom assessments and standardized tests should not rely more than a small amount on multiple-choice or short-answer items.

Finding that this had already been extensively studied was initially disappointing to my hopes to make strides in research, but it now excites me to know there is still so much to learn.

Another important thing I learned from this experience: I really feel that it had such an impact on me because it was something I put together on my own, and this amazing feeling led me to realize how powerful it is when the student figures something out by him or herself. This has structured my philosophies on life as well as education going forward. As the author Osho says, "Your own truth, your own finding, is going to liberate you; nothing else can do that for you."