Common Math Final Exam at Glendale Community College
Contact Yvette Hassakoursian, yvetteh@glendale.edu
Beginning in Fall 2000, the Mathematics Division at Glendale College administered a common final exam for all exiting Intermediate Algebra students, providing a wealth of extremely useful data. The original goal was to ensure that all students who completed the course were exposed to the same content. Since adjunct faculty taught most of these classes, it had been difficult to monitor course coverage. But now all instructors knew their students would suffer on the final if they didn’t learn all the material and the item analysis reveals exactly what material was left unlearned. In 2004, the common final exam was expanded to include all students exiting Elementary Algebra and we plan to add Basic Math courses as well.
Based on our Carnegie SPECC award, we are able to put more time and effort into analyzing the data collected in the common final exam. Currently we discuss grading practices with faculty, create seminars for instructors emphasizing topics on which students performed poorly, and, most recently, we introduced final review workshops for students. The common final item analysis breaks down the results to show which problems were most difficult for students. We discuss these problems in seminars and our annual Division retreat, helping us to complete the feedback loop needed for student learning outcomes.
The Division Chair uses the results of the common final (along with student final grades) to open a discussion with individual faculty members regarding their grading scale. For example, if an instructor’s class average on the final is very low and students’ final grades are mostly A’s and B’s, then the instructor may be too lenient, tests may be too easy, or homework or class participation may be emphasized too heavily in the calculation of the final grade.
Last year, we introduced student workshops during the second half of the semester to prepare students for the common final exam. We will continue these workshops using the previous versions of the common final exams as a study tool. (They are posted online at: http://www.glendale.edu/current/departments/math/cfeIndex.htm.) This year we will also consider the psychology of the common final exam and consider ways to reduce students’ fear and anxiety.