Need Advice! Final Exam Policy Changes

[shaolinRX]

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Does anyone else have an end of year assessment/Final exam that counts as a normal exam?

Need Help with the following:
Premise: I'm a student member of the Curriculum Committee at my school and they've recently decided to re-vamp the "final exam" up a little. Currently the exam doesn't count and is used to measure the overall performance of the students, the effectiveness of the curriculum, etc. BUT, if we don't find a way to incentivize the exam somehow to improve student motivation on the exam, they're considering making it count like a final exam. We've come up with ideas such as scholarships for the students that achieve the highest grades on the exam, but I was hoping that maybe someone in the forums would think of something else...

Background on exam: consistent low scores (students feel unmotivated because the exam doesn't count for anything). Last year the exam was supposed to change from not counting to pass/fail, but was turned down by the majority of the committee.

Any ideas are welcome!

 

[bananaface]

If it's ok to fail, make it count like an exam. If it's not ok to fail, reconsider making it pass/fail. Maybe make people do additional work in areas they fail and retake or just do additional work that the committee feels would bring them up to the competency desired.

 

[PharmaSynergy]

How about borrowing the concept of "rollover minutes" from the cell phone industry ... give "rollover points" on the final exam such that each point earned can be applied to future exams in which a student doesn't quite do as well as expected? I'm sure the committee can devise a creative methodology for the awarding of rollover points. 😉

 

[mike36]

Wow, your finals don't actually count as a grade? Must be nice. Ours are usually worth anywhere from 25%-40% of our final grade.

 

[genesis09]

Most of our "finals" are actually worth the same as a midtern. Most of the course coordinators here don't believe in cumulative finals.

 

[firefighter9015]

Our pharmaceutical calculations exam at the end of every semester is based on competency alone where they say your must make at least an x % to pass, and if you don't do it the first time then you have a chance to remediate.

Other than that, all of our finals are about 30-40% of our final grade.

 

[SpirivaSunrise]

I'm guessing this is more like a capstone exam though right? Not necessarily a final exam on one subject?

If it is...one recommendation I can make is to make sure it's scheduled appropriately. Ours was given at the end of our final exams week...it didn't count for a grade (i.e. was just to assess the 3 years of the curriculum). But we were so burnt out and just wanted to get it over with...I doubt it was a great tool to determine how much we learned from the didactic portion of the curriculum prior to rotations.

I've heard of some schools refusing their students from moving on to rotations if they didn't pass their capstone exam.

 

[PharmaSynergy]

I'm guessing this is more like a capstone exam though right? Not necessarily a final exam on one subject?

...I doubt it was a great tool to determine how much we learned from the didactic portion of the curriculum prior to rotations.

I've heard of some schools refusing their students from moving on to rotations if they didn't pass their capstone exam.

Spiriva, I think you're right ... it does sound more like a capstone exam (in which case the "rollover points" wouldn't exactly make sense, since there's no future 'events' to roll them over to. 😛)

Back in my pharm school days we didn't have a capstone/exit exam, but the cohorts a few years after us did. If I remember correctly, it was a pass/fail type of thing where non-passers were potentially held back from rotations. Not sure if it's relevant to the OP's school, but if there's high demand for particular clerkship sites, maybe one incentive could be that the high scorers could be given priority in their choice of rotation sites?? Just another thought.

 

[rxlynn]

Does anyone else have an end of year assessment/Final exam that counts as a normal exam?


Any ideas are welcome!

We have End of Year exam at the end of each year except the last one. It is actually required for progression to the next year. You have two chances to take and pass. If you fail it twice, then you have to write up a detailed plan of what you missed and how you will address these deficiencies. It's set up on computers sort of like how NAPLEX will be, so that's part of the function of the exam - to give us a bit of practice in that type of testing setting.

I can't imagine that anybody will take it seriously unless the school sets up real consequences. My understanding is that my school had the exact same problem until they instituted the requirements above.

 

[mike36]

Well I guess I misunderstood. I thought the OP was talking about finals at then end of each semester.

 

[shaolinRX]

great advice! thanks everyone!

 

[SCCpharm]

Something more useful would be a mandatory review session covering the whole year. Take attendance at the beginning, middle, and end. That way we at least learn something. Get rid of the test. I would rather be taught and learn, then have to take some exam that is not worth any points.