Efficacy of a hybrid take home and in class summative assessment for the postsecondary physics classroom

TL;DR

This study introduces a hybrid take-home and in-class assessment method in postsecondary physics that reduces student stress and enhances perceived mastery, addressing issues of anxiety and cheating associated with traditional exams.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel hybrid exam approach that combines take-home and in-class assessments to improve student experience and assessment accuracy in physics education.

Findings

Reduced test anxiety reported by students

Improved self-reported mastery of physics concepts

Statistically significant results at p < 0.05

Abstract

Assigning course grades to students requires obtaining accurate measures of the students' understanding and knowledge of the topic. The induced stress from a traditional summative assessment is known to negatively impact student grades, confounding the connection between knowledge and test grades. Documented approaches to reduce stress during examinations can lead to a distracting testing environment (two-stage tests) or are subject to cheating (take-home tests). We have developed a hybrid take-home/in-class exam that avoids such difficulties. We present herein the responses from student surveys conducted after each exam. The results of the surveys indicate that the hybrid exam method reduces test anxiety while improving students' self-reported mastery of physics, as compared to traditional in-class summative assessments. These findings are significant at the p < 0.05 level. Lastly, we discuss the difficulties encountered in applying this test approach.