Would Testing by Another Name Still Smell as Stinky?

 

The dreaded word: Test. For students these synonyms strike the same amount of fear and trepidation: exam, quiz, midterm and final. It is a word that creates anxiety, stress and apprehension. Students even get accommodations for testing anxiety. So, when we want to talk about testing as a positive way to create long term learning it is no surprise that people suddenly cannot hear anything about testing without the knee jerk, emotional response. In their article "Making Things Hard on Yourself, But in a Good Way: Creating Desirable Difficulties to Enhance Learning," authors Byork and Byork state that "testing is typically viewed as a vehicle of assessment, not a vehicle of learning." I think most students would agree. 

However, the Byorks' and others' research shows that testing actually facilitates learning better than most commonly practiced methods, but it is difficult to convince students of that fact; mainly because of their lifelong experiences of testing as assessment and usually the main method of determining if they pass or fail a class. Small wonder they have a fight or flight response to discussions about testing. 

What if we reframed or renamed the process? What if testing could be renamed "retrieval practice,"  "knowledge assessment" or "learning analysis?" If teachers, professors, and instructors began to utilize new ways of saying testing that seemed more positive would students be more open to exploring testing as a vehicle of retaining knowledge? 

As a student who has experienced the value of repeated low to no stakes testing as a method of knowledge retention, I know the value of the practice. However, it was not something I easily embraced. It took a while for me to see the results of completing small quizzes over and over again. The results were good and I had to admit that testing worked. 

My point is, reframing something that most people have negative reactions to can help them embrace it and become open to practice it, or at least give it a try. So let's not call it testing, or exams, let's choose a moniker that sounds encouraging and positive. One that inspires feelings of confidence and enthusiasm for learning.