INTRODUCTION
In the recent years the importance of collaborative group testing for improvement of students’ abilities has become even more crucial. It is emphasized that group testing may benefit both high- and low-performing students. Actually, the value of traditional exams is overestimated because students usually have individual tasks. Moreover, delayed feedback may lead students into misunderstanding of their mistakes. However, it would be more effectively to discuss individual answers after exam.
Giuliodori M.J., Lujan H.L., DiCarlo S.E. ran collaborative group testing to demonstrate that high- and low-performing students may benefit from appropriately hold group testing and improve their retention abilities (Giuliodori et al., 2008).
Unlike individual testing, collaborative group tasks help in engaging students in learning and active discussion, promoting and encouraging understanding and willingness to learn (Giuliodori et al., 2008). Being absorbed in collaborative testing, students receive emotional support that allows them to fulfill difficult tasks. Additionally, group learning improves race relations, self-pride, and compliance to cooperate with each other (Giuliodori et al., 2008).
Under severe competition conditions in world economy, students should posses the abilities to cooperate and solve problems in groups and use their knowledge in practice. Collaborative group testing also teach students to be responsible and patient to other group member.
Group activities are connected with several positive results, for instance, with high performance and satisfaction, professional behavior and skills. However, it is little-known, whether each group member benefits from collaborative actions and whether there exists mutual positive or negative influence on each other in the group framework. Therefore, this writing was created to study the influence of collaborative-group testing on students’ retention and abilities.
ORIGIN OF GROUP TESTING
The use of testing in education has a long history. Thorndike (1874 - 1949) identifies three stages of testing implementation in the American school practice (Fletcher, 2009):
1. Exploratory period (1900 - 1915). The development of abilities tests begins in 1905 after the publication of tests for the selection of children into special schools, which were composed by A. Binet and D. Simon (Fletcher, 2009). At this stage, scientists recognize the importance of memory, attention, and perception tests and started their initial implementation. Additional attention was paid to the intelligence tests that allow detecting individual IQ level (Fletcher, 2009).
2. Years of "noise" (1916 - 1930) in the development of school testing have lead to the final understanding of its role, opportunities and constraints. Achievement tests became more valid than traditional methods of determining school achievements, such as test papers, oral and written exams. Achievement tests have become the mostly widespread in the United States.
3. Modern Stage (1931). The introduction and improvement of tests progressed rapidly. Diagnostic performance testing, which uses an alternative form of selecting the correct answer from several plausible, has become widespread (Fletcher, 2009).
With the help of these simple tasks experts are able to accumulate significant statistical data, expose it to mathematical treatment, and obtain objective conclusions.
Modern specialists direct their search for:
- Increase testing objectivity
- Create a continuous testing system
-Subordinate testing to a single idea and the general principles
-Create new and better means of testing presentation and processing
-Accumulate and effectively use diagnostic information.
Consequently, testing is the most promising method of knowledge diagnosing.
Raymond Cattell was the first researcher to use the term "IQ test" in the psychological literature (“History of IQ Tests”, n.d.). This term became widely known when Cattell’s article "Intelligent tests and measurements" was published in 1890 in the journal "Mind" (“History of IQ Tests”, n.d.). In his article, R. Cattell wrote that the use of a series of tests to a large number of individuals will open patterns of mental processes (“History of IQ Tests”, n.d.). However, he suggested that the scientific and practical value of the test will increase if the conditions of their holding will be identical. So, the need to standardize the tests was proclaimed, in order to enable comparisons of the results obtained by different researchers in different subjects.
Following R. Cattell, other U.S. laboratories have begun to apply the method of testing. There was a need to organize special coordination centers on the use of this method. In 1895-1896 years in the U.S. two national committees were created to join forces of testers and give general direction to testing works (“History of IQ Tests”, n.d.).
Test method is widely used. A new step in its development was made by the French physician and psychologist A. Binet (1857-1911), creator of the most popular series of tests.
In 1904 the Ministry of Education asked A. Binet to develop methods by which it was possible to separate the children capable to learn, but who were lazy and suffered from congenital defects and were not able to study in a traditional school (Fletcher, 2009). Experimental tasks conducted on many subjects were tested for statistical criteria and were seen as a means of determining the intellectual level.
The next stage in the development of testing is characterized by a change in form of the test applied. All tests created in the first decade of the XX century, were individual and allowed to lead individual testing (Fletcher, 2009). This type of testing could be used by specialists and these features of the tests limited their spread. However, practice required to diagnose large numbers of people in order to select the most prepared for this or that kind of activity, as well as to distribute people with different activities in accordance with their individual characteristics. Consequently, in the U.S. during the World War I, there appeared a new form of tests - collaborative-group testing (Fletcher, 2009).
Group (collective) tests not only provided testing of large groups, but also simplified instruction and evaluation of test results.
While individual tests were mainly used in hospitals, collaborative-group testing was used mainly in education, in industry and in the army.
In the early 1920s, it was a testing boom (Fletcher, 2009). Rapid and widespread distribution of testing was primarily due to its focus on operational solution of practical problems. Using intelligence tests was seen as a means for scientific approach to the issues of training, professional selection, evaluation of achievements, etc.
During the first half of the XX century, specialists in psychological diagnosis created lots of different tests. At the same time, developing methodological aspects of tests, they brought it to perfection (Fletcher, 2009). All tests were standardized carefully on large samples; testers worked to ensure that all of them were of high reliability and of good validity.
COLLABORATIVE GROUP TESTING
Giuliodori M.J., Lujan H.L., DiCarlo S.E. used collaborative group testing to test the abilities of 65 students trying to prove that both low-performing and high performing students may benefit from group testing (Giuliodori et al., 2008). They ran individual exams at first, and immediately asked the students to answer the same questions in groups and with instructors. The results were measured and evaluated in accordance with the students’ outcomes of individual and group testing.
The research had the following objectives (Giuliodori et al., 2008):
The collaborative group testing hold by the researches included three stages (Giuliodori et al., 2008):
- Individual tasks. Students completed individual tests that included 20 questions within 40 minutes. The obtained exam results were accumulated for individual evaluation.
- Collaborative group testing. Students worked in pairs and completed the tasks of 20 questions within 30 minutes. The participants fulfilled test sheets together and after finishing the task handed in the results to the instructor. The exams were collected for group evaluation.
Figure 1 provides the outcomes of individual and group test evaluation.
Figure 1. Individual and group scores for three tests
Source: Advances in Physiology Education: How we teach
Individual and group scores were analyzed and compared and some important conclusions were drawn, which demonstrated the percentage of increased and decreased students, and also classified those who had no changes at all. According to the Figure 1, group scores were higher than individual scores in three tests with the same questions.
Obtained individual scores made it possible to divide students into two groups: high-performing and low performing (Giuliodori et al., 2008). For instance, students, who obtained good results in three tests, were classifies as high-performing, and those students, who had the worst results in each test, were classified as low-performing. The results of individual testing were compared with group testing scores with the purpose of determining whether collaborative group testing might improve students’ performance. Additionally, the students were asked to evaluate the new group testing methodology answering 17 questions, and the research group got positive feedback about this type of testing.
Actually, the research demonstrated that collaborative group testing is rather effective in improving students’ performance and exam results. No matter what specialization students have, they will surely score more points for collaborative group exam than for individual testing.
Giuliodori M.J., Lujan H.L., DiCarlo S.E. found out that although all students increased their results in group testing, low-performing students improved their results more than high-performance students (Giuliodori et al., 2008). These educators were the first to demonstrate the fact that collaborative group testing has a positive impact on both low- and high-performing students.
Their findings are of high importance because some scientists are anxious about the fact that bad-prepared students may rely on well-prepared students when performing group testing together and thereby improving their test results. That’s why it is crucial to determine whether the positive results of low-performing students are the contribution of well-prepared students, or someone who know the correct test answer.
Working individually, students are under pressure and stress and may produce lots of mistakes failing to answer some test questions (Giuliodori et al., 2008). Collaborative group testing, in its turn, improve the students’ performance influencing both bad-prepared and well-prepared students. However, approximately 10% of all participants usually don’t have any changes with group testing (Giuliodori et al., 2008).
It is important to note, that collaborative group testing produces scores increase and never decrease because answers prepared together have more chances to be correct than wrong. In discussion, it is easier to convince the student who is wrong than to convince the student who is right and who can prove the rightness of the choice. In this regard, the greatest advantage of collaborative group testing becomes apparent when the amount of individual scores exceeds 35 percent and is not higher than 70% (Giuliodori et al., 2008). This is the most optimal range for improvement and it helps in understanding the real influence of group testing on students while studying (Giuliodori et al., 2008).
However, during individual testing the importance of individual work cannot be denied. Working individually, students have opportunity to put their thoughts in order and to understand the sense of test questions and decide what answer may be correct. Afterward, collaborative group testing gives opportunity and time to discuss the possible right answers by equal discussion (Gilley & Clarkston, 2014). Consequently, the positive impact of collaborative group testing could be produced owing to the students’ explanations provided for each other because the best way to learn the course information is to teach it generating various important explanations that may help answer test questions without mistakes.
Moreover, it is important that the instructor supports the students participating in collaborative testing by providing feedback and support for several reasons (Giuliodori et al., 2008). First of all, because some students who know the right answer may not choose it when answering the test question, Secondly, because some questions are usually remain unanswered even by the best performers. Thirdly, few students may decrease group results. Hence, the instructor should control the process of collaborative testing and support the students in their choice to enhance their performance and ability to reach the better results.
In fact, testing and exams are the effective tools for performance evaluation and improving learning (Gilley & Clarkston, 2014). During individual testing, students answer test question individually and get results in a few days. Some students may fail the exam by one or two wrong answers. It is a problem both for students and for instructors as they must spend additional time to obtain enough scores and pass examinations. In addition, there is no students-instructor interaction and consequently, performance result is very low. However, collaborative group testing demonstrates its effectiveness and benefits enhancing test results of low-performing and high-performing students, improving learning process and mutual interaction between students and the instructor, who plays very important role in group testing process and supports the students (Gilley & Clarkston, 2014). Additionally, the instructor correlates the process of students’ choice and control the whole testing procedure.
It is important to realize that collaborative group testing not just help in performance and learning improvement. It also improves students’ retention of course content (Cortright et al., 2003). Some studies demonstrate that students’ retention in most cases is short-lived. However, collaborative testing may improve this statistics.
However, collaborative group testing has several drawbacks. The main disadvantage of group testing is the reduce opportunities of the instructor to achieve mutual understanding among students in some cases. In addition, group testing makes it difficult to control the functional state of students, such as anxiety, fatigue, etc. Sometimes, in order to understand the causes of poor performance on the test the instructor should hold an additional personal interview. Individual tests, in their turn, do not have these drawbacks.
CONCLUSION
Individual and group testing is widely used in education and is the question of concern for many researches. Lots of studies report on beneficial effects of collaborative group testing across various disciplines and people. Collaborative group testing affects learning, performance and students’ retention abilities.
This writing demonstrates that collaborative group testing has significantly positive impact on students’ performance in comparison with individual testing. Collaborative learning and testing is an effective tool for students’ learning and information perception. It is frequently used in educational practice because it has positive learning outcomes. Collaborative group testing can be described as an approach that puts students and the quality of their knowledge in the center. Additionally, group testing helps improve students’ perception and increases tests scores. The major advantages of collaborative testing and learning are improved critical thinking skills, increased cooperation between team members and instructor, reduced stress and anxiety, higher test results and student’s performance and retention.
The writing demonstrates that collaborative group testing affects low-performing and high-performing students and helps them increase their rate and get more correct answers. The students are involved into learning and even have an opportunity to teach each other reaching the better results. The greatest advantage of group learning and testing is the substantial improvement of individual knowledge and close cooperation between a student and the instructor.
Individual testing is a traditional exam format in most institutions. However, it should be fully eliminated or at least combined with collaborative group testing. The main drawback of individual testing is feedback that is received too late (some days later after the test). Group testing, in its turn, provide the immediate feedback, which helps students perform better.
Combination of individual and group testing (the so-called two-stage exam) can be easily applied in any institution that cares for their students and their performance results. This combination may be rather beneficial for both the students and the instructor as it involves not just individual thinking but also group discussion and answers evaluation.
Works Cited
Cortright R. N. et al. “STUDENT RETENTION OF COURSE CONTENT IS IMPROVED BY COLLABORATIVE-GROUP TESTING” Advances in Physiology Education September 2003. Web. 25 June 2014.
Fletcher, Dan. “Standardized Testing” Time Web-site 11 December 2009. Web. 25 June 2014.
Gilley, Brett and Bridgette Clarkston. “Collaborative Testing: Evidence of Learning in a Controlled In-Class Study of Undergraduate Students” Research and Teaching 2014. Web. 25 June 2014.
Giuliodori, M. J. et al. “Collaborative group testing benefits high- and low-performing students.” Advances in Physiology Education December 2008. Web. 25 June 2014.
History of IQ Tests. IQ Test Experts Web-site. Web. 25 June 2014.
