In Praise of the Humble Quiz: A Compendium of Research Findings

ABSTRACT

Postsecondary education has undergone dramatic changes in the past 30 years or so. When I began teaching at the college level in the mid-1980s I went to class clutching my scribbled notes and a piece of chalk. If I scheduled it well in advance, a few times each semester I could have someone wheel in an overhead or film projector. Students typed papers and I provided handwritten feedback. I typed exams on a stencil, duplicated them on a mimeograph machine, and painstakingly graded each one by hand. Those were not the good old days. Today we have seemingly endless options available to us when it comes to the delivery of course material and the assessment of student learning. As instructors, we create learning environments rich in information from many sources. We encourage our students to engage with the material and become active learners rather than passive recipients of knowledge. As our views of teaching and learning continue to evolve, it is tempting to discard less exciting and more traditional methods altogether as we embrace the future. I would argue that the decidedly old-fashioned quiz, however, deserves a place in this brave new world of education.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• learning
• quiz
• retention