PROMOTE MY BLOG: JUST CLICK BELOW BUTTON

Search Any Paper On This Blog

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Re: ::: vuaskari.com ::: Dr. Naveed Malik's reply about paper pattern

Actually after my first semester, paper pattern was still long.

Secondly, I discussed this issue for the first time when it was my 5th semester, but most students didn't agree with me at that time. 




On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:21 PM, mc100201283 Fakhar Ul Mushtaq <mc100201283@vu.edu.pk> wrote:
Dear,

I sure will contact rector when it is time to do so. Good for you to send the email after your 8 semesters. The email would have been nicer after your first semester. 
Thanks and Good luck in your future endeavors.



On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 10:04 AM, Muhammad Umair <muhammad.umair.491@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear, as per your thinking MCQs are good choice for paper pattern. OK

As per my thinking long questions are good paper pattern. OK

I conveyed my thoughts to rector with the reasons. OK

You can convey your thoughts to the rector with arguments favoring MCQs. OK

Secondly, it isn't that I don't want students to get good marks. Students used to get good marks even in long paper pattern. What I have concern is that MOST students get such marks with MCQs paper pattern that they actually don't deserve. This happened with me too on a number of occasions when I got more marks than I actually deserved.

You can get clue from my email to rector that in which semester I can be.





On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 7:42 PM, mc100201283 Fakhar Ul Mushtaq <mc100201283@vu.edu.pk> wrote:
And why are you doing all this? Do you not want to get more marks and you just want to be a trouble maker? Or perhaps you don't want other students to get good marks. Which semester are you in?

It is proven in the world that MCQs can better judge students ability, that is why it is the most common/popular pattern for exams all over the world. 95% of the entry tests including prestigious universities are MCQs, can you give me a reason why???

The reason is that If the questions are longer then you are covering may be 10% of the material. By using MCQs you can cover up to 60 - 70%. 

What you should have argued was to not repeat the MCQs. Also another problem with subjective question is that now it is subject to the understanding of the person who is checking your papers. Unless it is the same person who is going to check all the tests for that particular subject, you can never guarantee that all the students will be given marks at the same level.

As far as degradation is concerned, it has nothing to do with the paper pattern. This is just the way it is with the long distance learning. It is a fact that the long distance learning, will never be recognized at the same level as the regular universities. Do you think making the subjective paper will guarantee better jobs? When you are out in the market to get the job, It is up to the student's capability.  It doesn't matter if you have good marks or not, practical life is different.



On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 4:04 AM, Muhammad Umair <muhammad.umair.491@gmail.com> wrote:
Assalam o Alaikum

Dr. Naveed didn't agree too much with me that change of paper pattern lead to degradation of VU. But, I did give him suggestions about paper pattern.

Here was what I wrote to him about paper pattern.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sir, please do something of this exam pattern. MCQs paper pattern is not a good paper pattern.

Students get too much marks in this subjects. Too many even though they don't know that particular subject that well. It happened with me on a number of occasions too.

Sir, I will give you a little example which I also give to my fellow students to tell them that MCQs paper pattern is not a good paper pattern and we get more marks than actually we deserve.

Sir, I took admission in VU in Fall 2007 semester. Sir, at that time, I observed by seeing results of different subjects that how much difficult or easy a particular subject is. I saw the final term result of Financial Management (MGT201) in Spring 2008 semester and noted that there were almost 70% students who failed in this subject. No other subject had higher percentage than this. I considered this subject the most difficult subject that was being taught at VU. And I remember highest marks in that subject in that semester were 77 or 78. But no one got A grade. This happened when only 10-15% portion was of MCQs and rest of the questions were long/theoretical/numerical questions.

Sir, when I see the result of this subject now a days of other students. They get A grade very very easily. How it is  possible? Also, you can check the percentage of students who fail now in this subject and compare it with percentage of students who failed when there was long questions paper pattern. You will come up with a huge difference.

I only talked about Financial Management above. However, you can also compare percentages of other subjects that I considered too much difficult by seeing their results. Some of them are Research Methods, Assembly Lanauge, Statistics, Calculus, and many others.

Sir, students see past papers and just memorize MCQs (most of students), attend the exam and manage to pass it.

Sir, no one can at least memorize long questions, especially numerical questions can't be memorized. One has to practice them to learn. Furthermore, luck can work in MCQs but not in long questions. One can tick mark any option of MCQ and that option can turn out to be correct. But to write answers of numerical questions one has to practice and learn.

Sir, I have even seen such students who don't know how to compute derivatives and integration in Calculus and still they pass MTH101 subject. This never happened in long questions paper pattern.

Sir, I have seen such students who don't know how to make a balance sheet or profit and loss account and still they manage to pass MGT101 Financial Accounting.

same can be observed with other subjects too...

Sir, MCQs also affected some of my subjects. I got more marks in some subjects when I didn't knew subject that very well.

I hope, you will look into my suggestions about exam pattern.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and see his reply..

Umair,

You have made your case quite strongly. I will look into the
statistics for the various courses you have mentioned. Changing the
proportion of MCQs vs Essay type questions is very doable and will not
cause any problems (except perhaps, a longer grading time).

Please also let me have your comments about the long/essay/numerical
questions. Are they up to the mark or are they too easy also?


Then I replied as follows... (check my suggestion about the fact that students don't cheat in assignments)

Sir, here are my comments about Long, theoretical and/or numerical questions.


Sir, I will talk about such questions that are given both in assignments and exams.


Let's talk about assignments first. Sir, I have observed that many instructors don't provide such questions in assignments that can judge the ability of students. They give quite simple questions on occasions. Sir, when I studied CS410 (Visual Programming) course two semesters ago. It was second assignment (I think) of this course, instructor gave a question to write a program and that program was NOTHING. Sir, we were given to write a program of which a similar coded example was given in handouts and you know what we had to do of ourselves to complete that assignment. We were just required to change the text in double quotes "Hello World" to "Student Name: this and VUID: this". Furthermore, most of assignments in that semester contained questions in which we were asked to write answers to theoretical questions instead of programs. Sir, theory does have importance in Programming, but this does not mean that we should give all importance to theory and very little importance to programming.


Secondly Sir, I have a suggestion about assignments of some subjects. Sir, there is a homework helping website of U.S.A. www.cramster.com. It has been more than a year that I help that community in their questions related to Mathematics. Sir, having spent much time on that website, I noted many things of U.S.A.'s education that I think can be applied without any difficulty to our VU education as well. 


Sir, once I saw a question posted on that website which was in somewhat following format.


Solve the following system of Linear Equations.


x1 + x2 = 5

2x1 + 3x2 = a    (where a is the last digit of your student ID)


Sir, VU instructors can also ask such questions in assignments (to avoid copy among students). This may not work in all subjects, but this will definitely work in many subjects like in Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Numerical Analysis, Discrete Maths, Statistics etc. etc. This will also work in some selective topics of Data Structures, Algorithms, Automata. I can't say about MGT courses but those who are expert in MGT subjects can definitely tell you whether such approach will work in such subjects or not.


Sir, let's come to such type of questions in exams. Sir, I am much satisfied with long questions asked in exams. But, I noted from past two or three semesters that in many subjects long questions of 10 marks have disappeared and they have been replaced by questions of 5 marks. I think, long questions of 10 marks need to come back in exams too.


Sir, you are right that increasing number of long questions will definitely require more time to check answers. I think the only choice for VU will be to increase the number of tutors.


Regards

Umair



Fellows, what you think now about paper pattern? Dr. naveed malik is looking into statistics that I mentioned in my email about MGT201 course and also many others. It is damn true. 


I hope, we will see long paper pattern again in VU.


happy.gif




--
We say, "Be one as Pakistani Nation and grow up for Pakistan's Future". Wish you all the best. Join www.vuaskari.com,
To post to this group, send email to vuaskari_com@googlegroups.com
Visit these groups:
This (Main) Group:http://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_com?hl=en?hl=en
MIT/MCS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/vu_askarimit?hl=en?hl=en
HRM Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_hrm?hl=en?hl=en
Banking Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_banking?hl=en?hl=en
Management: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mgt?hl=en
Marketing: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mkt?hl=en
MIS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_mis?hl=en

--
We say, "Be one as Pakistani Nation and grow up for Pakistan's Future". Wish you all the best. Join www.vuaskari.com,
To post to this group, send email to vuaskari_com@googlegroups.com
Visit these groups:
This (Main) Group:http://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_com?hl=en?hl=en
MIT/MCS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/vu_askarimit?hl=en?hl=en
HRM Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_hrm?hl=en?hl=en
Banking Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_banking?hl=en?hl=en
Management: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mgt?hl=en
Marketing: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mkt?hl=en
MIS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_mis?hl=en

--
We say, "Be one as Pakistani Nation and grow up for Pakistan's Future". Wish you all the best. Join www.vuaskari.com,
To post to this group, send email to vuaskari_com@googlegroups.com
Visit these groups:
This (Main) Group:http://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_com?hl=en?hl=en
MIT/MCS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/vu_askarimit?hl=en?hl=en
HRM Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_hrm?hl=en?hl=en
Banking Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_banking?hl=en?hl=en
Management: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mgt?hl=en
Marketing: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mkt?hl=en
MIS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_mis?hl=en

--
We say, "Be one as Pakistani Nation and grow up for Pakistan's Future". Wish you all the best. Join www.vuaskari.com,
To post to this group, send email to vuaskari_com@googlegroups.com
Visit these groups:
This (Main) Group:http://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_com?hl=en?hl=en
MIT/MCS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/vu_askarimit?hl=en?hl=en
HRM Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_hrm?hl=en?hl=en
Banking Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_banking?hl=en?hl=en
Management: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mgt?hl=en
Marketing: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mkt?hl=en
MIS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_mis?hl=en

--
We say, "Be one as Pakistani Nation and grow up for Pakistan's Future". Wish you all the best. Join www.vuaskari.com,
To post to this group, send email to vuaskari_com@googlegroups.com
Visit these groups:
This (Main) Group:http://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_com?hl=en?hl=en
MIT/MCS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/vu_askarimit?hl=en?hl=en
HRM Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_hrm?hl=en?hl=en
Banking Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_banking?hl=en?hl=en
Management: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mgt?hl=en
Marketing: https://groups.google.com/group/vuaskari_mkt?hl=en
MIS Group: http://groups.google.com/group/askari_mis?hl=en

No comments:

Post a Comment

PLEASE COMMENT ABOUT YOUR VISIT AND MY SITE

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.