Is this going to be on the test?

In my experience, there has been one question that has commonly frustrated faculty, including me. It happens when a hand goes up after an hour of lecture, and the question is, "Is this going to be on the test?" It is hard not to feel defeated when all students seem interested in knowing what is on the test. It got me thinking. There had to be a way to get students to refocus their learning and not solely worry about whether it would be on the test. Yet, the fact is that most of our students come to us with an approach to learning that goes something like this. Find out what will be on the test, study (memorize) it, reproduce it, and then forget it. We all know that approach isn't going to work in PA education. So we need to guide our students toward a new perspective.

Another common frustration most of us share is that students don't read the syllabus. We all know, and the literature supports that they don't read them (Smart, 2021). However, I believe this is because we are working on false assumptions. Students rely on past experiences using syllabi solely for information purposes, not as a learning tool. They see the syllabus as a document with a lot of information that isn't usable except for telling them how they will be graded and what, if any, assignments or projects must be done for the class. As faculty, we tend to assume students know how to use them, given all their previous years in education. But this isn't accurate. 

For sound educational practice and accreditation requirements, we spend hours writing learning outcomes and instructional objectives using measurable verbs to align our assessments to those verbs and ensure we evaluate our students against what they were taught and what we asked them to learn. All of that goes into our syllabi. But what I noticed is that we commonly don't take the time to teach the students how to use the syllabus as a learning tool. We may take a few minutes in the first class to review important information like attendance, grading, assignments, and class expectations. But that isn't enough. We need to teach them how to use this document we have intentionally crafted to support them as learners and help them succeed. This means educating them on learning outcomes and instructional objectives, why we write them, and that they are a way of ensuring they acquire the medical knowledge and skills needed to be ready for practice when they graduate. We have to teach them that PA program syllabi are meant to be used as a learning tool and guide. 

So, I added a section to the presentation I commonly did with each new class during the program's first week. During the presentation, I briefly define learning outcomes. However, I spend much more time explaining the importance of the instructional objectives and how they clearly define the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they need to learn topic by topic and module by module. Using a current course syllabus, I show them how to identify the verb and how that verb tells them not only what but how they need to know the material, and this helps them focus on what they need to read and study. Then, using one of the current course syllabi, we actually work through some objectives, identifying the verb, defining how they need to know the material, and asking how they would approach studying to ensure they know the information the objective is asking them to know. I mention several times that the instructional objectives are the blueprint for the exams and that all exam or assessment questions come from the objectives. This means they already have direct information about what they need to know and study for the assessments in the course. 

After we have gone through a few examples, then I make the following statement: 

"And this is why the one forbidden question that may never be asked is: Is this going to be on the test?"

There is usually a little murmuring and muttering going on at this point. However, I impress upon them again that they literally have the blueprint to the exams in that course already in their possession, the instructional objectives in their syllabus. They will find themselves well-prepared for the exams if they use those as their reading and study guide. And since this is new for most students, it helps to periodically remind them over the first semester about how to use their syllabus as a study guide effectively. 

Benefits of teaching students how to use a syllabus.

A few wonderful things happen after this approach has been instituted in a program, and students embrace how to use a syllabus and understand the importance of instructional objectives as they relate to their learning and success in the course.

1. Students' assessment performance scores increase, assuming the objectives align appropriately with the assessment method.

2. Their anxiety decreases because they understand what and how to study, so the unknown is out of things. Therefore, there is no longer the need to ask, will this be on the test? And so they stop asking.

3. For faculty, the number of exam issues with students decreases regarding their perception of an unfair test or unfair questions. Because questions are tethered to the objectives, students can clearly appreciate that when they take the exam.

4. Examination statistics reviews of poorly performing questions also tend to fall as faculty get better at writing test questions due to tethering them to the objectives.

5. Educationally, solid alignment between the instructional objectives and assessment methods provides solid evidence that students are learning what they need to learn. 

Reference

Smart, S. (2021). A professor hid a cash prize on campus. All students had to do was read the syllabus. Retrieved from   https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/18/us/tennessee-professor-syllabus-money-trnd/index.html