NOT A SOUND TEST

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20783, 19 July 1937, Page 6

NOT A SOUND TEST

THE MATRICULATION EXAMINATION VISITING EDUCATIONIST’S OPINION By Teieeraph Pies? CHRISTCHURCH, July 17 The matriculation examination, due in some measure to the variation in marking by different examiners, was not a really sound prognostication of the student’s scholastic success at the university, contended Dr. E. G. Malherbe, of South Africa, in his concluding address to teachers attending the New Education Fellowship conference to-day. He argued that objective tests were a sounder and a more searching method of assessing th standard. The objective tests, he claimed, reduced the weaknesses and defects of the essay type of examination. These tests called for short answers, by one or a few words, and they could be answered only if the student had a pertinent knowledge, readily available, of the subject. A Social Problem Examinations were a social problem as well as a school problem, said the lecturer. People spoke of the examination fetish and complained about it, but no one did anything about it. The desire to maintain scholastic standards was behind it all. That was quite a laudable objective In New Zealand this desire for maintaining standards was so strong that for many years the examination papers had been sent to 1 England to be marked. The domination of university requirements was a feature of the education system, and this was unfair, when it was remembered that a very small proportion of students who went through the schools passed on to the university. Matriculation was supposed to be a test of further ability to be examined. The dominance of examinations was further enhanced by the fact that schools competed for results, he remarked. If the competitive examination was abolished entirely, the teachers would not feel altogether happy about it. Varied from Year to Year The progress of the matriculation examination depended on reliability and validity. It was possible to have a high reliability without a high validity. The number of candidates failing in the examinations varied greatly from year to year, yet it was not possible that the ability of the nation’s children and the standard of the teaching could vary so definitely Dr. Malherbe suggested that a better way of solving the problem would be to decide the percentage of pupils who should fail, rather than the percentage of marks required for a pass. In his opinion, qualifications required of students entering the university should be: (1) Ability to find a range and to read evidence; (2) ability to concentrate on a project and to pursue it to its conclusion; (3) ability to budget working hours; (4) ability to think clearly and honestly and to express their ideas vigorously. “I deplore the one-textbook student,” he added. “I don’t know how you get on in this country’, where so many of your students take lectures late in the afternoon and later disgorge the matter of the lecture. That seems to be a sort of educational cafetaria.” Certain universities had arrived at the conclusion that the matriculation or entrance examination was not a reliable indication of scholastic success at the university. They had decided that a better indication could be obtained from the . student’s school record, together with an intelligence test at the beginning of the university course.