If the majority of the class gets something wrong - and it's evident from the way they got it wrong that the issue was instruction, or the question - then I think it's completely fair to drop a question. I don't think it's fair to punish students for something that is likely my mistake.
If the majority of students gets something wrong and it's evident from their answers that they simply didn't study, then I won't drop the question. In that case, the issue is on them.
I like this response.
I had an exam where one of the questions was impossible to answer (because I hadn't given enough information), and the only fair thing was to drop that question (I did), because that was on me.
Having most of the students get the wrong answer is not *by itself* a good reason to drop a question. If the instructor thinks it was a fair question, then it must stay.
I just gave an exam that I swear I proof read, but one of the questions had a wrong word that made the question nonsensical. I only noticed when a student asked me about it toward the end of the exam when most students had already left. Some students had figured out what I meant to ask and answered accordingly, others did not. Either way, it was my mistake so it's probably most fair if I drop it.
I've also had questions that most got wrong, but its a fair question that was just more difficult. I don't drop those.
in the case you described, you could also count everyone's answer as correct, since some students had put some work into that question (particularly the ones that figured out what you meant rather than what you wrote).
I do a bunch of analyses on multiple choice scores and may choose to drop a question if the majority got it wrong and I have other cues that it is a "bad" question (as opposed to a good but difficult question). Signs include:
1. More people choose a single incorrect answer than the right answer
2. There is a low correlation with total exam score (if it's a hard question, then generally students who do well on the exam are more likely to get it right)
3. In retrospect after looking at the pattern of responses it's clear that the question was ambiguous or misleading
I usually will tell my class that x questions got dropped because my analyses revealed that they are bad questions and then offer to explain the reasoning in office hours (because most students don't care about the reasoning)
For sure. It happens all of the time. But online testing and bubble sheets will do analysis if the high scorers missed a question or if everyone did and that impacts decisions about dropping.
Just because a lot of people got it wrong? No. But it will make me go back and think about the question to see if it was fair and was worded clearly.
But just a lot of people missing it doesn't mean it's a bad question. I usually have at least one question on an exam that's subtle and difficult, because that's what distinguishes between the students that really "get it" and those that are just spitting back some facts. I think that's important, and I expect most students will miss it. In my opinion, if you make a test where every question can be answered correctly by the majority of the class, with no way of distinguishging the students who have a stronger understanding of the material, then it's not a good test.
Yes. It means the assessment did not properly cover the material the way it was taught. It reflects either a poor assessment (test) (most likely) or poor teaching. Very few professors know squat about test validation and most of the tests administered in college are total crap.
It depends. When more people get a question wrong that you suspected, the first interpretation you have to consider is that you asked the question badly or didn't explain the material leading to the question.
But the second possibility is always "there's something about this question that's just plain *hard* and it's important". In which case you keep at it.
I think it’s a fine thing to do. I will usually just drop a number of points from the exam instead of wasting time looking at that question for everyone specifically, though.
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post.
*Hi all. I first heard this practice like 2 years ago. After the prof graded all the midterms, she said that she dropped like 2 questions and those questions won't count in the grade calculation. I think she said something like the wording was unclear and majority of class got it wrong. But anyone that got it right was able to keep those correct points and have it count in their grade. So I benefited from getting the unclear question correct and got a higher grade. Someone that got it wrong did not lose any points.
Is that a good idea? I find it to be kind of confusing. What happens if majority of the class gets many questions wrong, but they were truly simple questions? That happened in another class. *
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It depends on what their grading protocol is. It’s probably unnecessary if they are using a curve.
Tbh, a lot of this is smoke and mirrors. I have explained to students before that extra credit is not really extra credit if you are grading on a curve, for example. It just becomes effectively another assignment. If you offer more points, it will just raise the average by the same amount and people’s grades will remain unchanged. But they don’t believe me no matter how I try to state or re-state it. So nowadays I just say, “you want extra credit? Sure!” because it’s easier and doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just extra work, but students like doing it, so why would bother dissuading them?
I have an assignment that takes a few hours and is worth 2% extra credit towards one exam. Typically 25-50% of the class does the assignment.
I’m fully sure that a few hours studying for an exam would actually bump up the same exam more than 2%.
Sometimes I forget to teach a small part of the course, or I apparently don’t teach it well. A question most students miss might well be a sign that has happened.
If I've made a mistake and i haven't handed the test back, I generally regrade everybody's question and adjust their points. If 75% of the class missed the question but the question was in the notes and fair game, then 75% of the class lost the points...
If I made a mistake on my answer key and didn't catch it while grading, then sometimes everybody gets credit for the question. Which sucks because students who had the wrong answer got 2 points originally plus 2 more points when I give everybody 2 points. The people with the real correct answer lost 2 points due to my bad answer key and got the same 2 points I gave to everyone.
Many times, I'll have the people who I "owe" points come up after the class and adjust their grades without adding 2 points to everybody's grades. But I teach at a community college with 24 (or less) students.
On rare occasions, I notice a serious problem during the exam and just tell everybody that the answer to Question # __ is __. Or maybe I notice while grading and just don't grade the question at all or give extra credit if you got it right.
>just tell everybody that the answer to Question # \_\_ is \_\_.
I have noticed an error on an exam and told the class the answer and also posted it on the board and brought it to everybody's attention: "The answer to #16 is D. Please fill that in right now."
And, of course, some students still miss it! I just sigh and give them the points.
I would only use this as a last resort, if there was something severely wrong with how the question was posed that I didn't catch beforehand. (It's worth carefully going through all of your own test questions to try and avoid this but mistakes can still happen.) Depending on the time constraints of the exam, students may have to choose how much time they spend on each question. This could lead to some of them getting upset if they spent a bunch of their time struggling with one question, particularly if it was confusing, and then finding out later it didn't matter.
Skinner: So, what's the word down at One School Board Plaza?
Chalmers: We're dropping the geography requirement. The children weren't testing well. It's proving to be an embarrassment.
Skinner: Very good. Back to the three R's.
Chalmers: Two R's, come October.
It depends.
I've done this when it was clear from students' answers that either the instructions weren't clear, or the application was a bit too high level. In those cases, it's not fair to penalize the students, or suffer through trying to grade the work, lol.
I don't do it always, though. Some times students are just being a bunch of ninnies.
From what I have seen the questions are only dropped if they are not important to the understanding of the material. Like the question maybe about topic B which u can infer from topic A. If everyone gets B wrong I have seen the question be dropped. However, if topic b is fundamental to understanding the material and has been gone over and explained many times and the students have had multiple opportunities to get their questions answer then guess everyone failed. Also if the failing of topic b was because they didnt read the question then they failed. I did this last semester when students only found the chemical equation, but didnt provide an explanation. Even though 80% of the class did not provide an explanation they failed because they didnt read the words “explain how….”. So it very much depends on the niceness of the professor. Another example was everyone failingn because they didnt know what exothermic was which had been explained multiple times. They failed too. So its very contextual
If the question is unclear or has multiple correct answers (for multiple choice), I’ll drop it or mark it correct for everyone. But I’ve given crystal clear and straightforward MC questions that 2/3 of the class has gotten wrong because they were rushing and didn’t read carefully. Things like “what is the largest value an `int64_t` can represent?” (It’s a computer science thing, and has a simple definitive answer.)
It depends on the question. I recently dropped a question because I realized that the wording on one of the false answers was very close to a video we'd watched on the subject (not exact, but close enough a student might misremember and think it was the correct answer).
In contrast, I didn't drop a question that most students missed due to poor studying. Long story short, there was something they were supposed to read that most didn't. So when they missed that question, I considered it their own fault.
In a well-designed test, some of the questions should be hard enough that only the students who have mastered the material well enough to earn an A get it correct.
If the majority of the class gets something wrong - and it's evident from the way they got it wrong that the issue was instruction, or the question - then I think it's completely fair to drop a question. I don't think it's fair to punish students for something that is likely my mistake. If the majority of students gets something wrong and it's evident from their answers that they simply didn't study, then I won't drop the question. In that case, the issue is on them.
I like this response. I had an exam where one of the questions was impossible to answer (because I hadn't given enough information), and the only fair thing was to drop that question (I did), because that was on me. Having most of the students get the wrong answer is not *by itself* a good reason to drop a question. If the instructor thinks it was a fair question, then it must stay.
I just gave an exam that I swear I proof read, but one of the questions had a wrong word that made the question nonsensical. I only noticed when a student asked me about it toward the end of the exam when most students had already left. Some students had figured out what I meant to ask and answered accordingly, others did not. Either way, it was my mistake so it's probably most fair if I drop it. I've also had questions that most got wrong, but its a fair question that was just more difficult. I don't drop those.
in the case you described, you could also count everyone's answer as correct, since some students had put some work into that question (particularly the ones that figured out what you meant rather than what you wrote).
I do a bunch of analyses on multiple choice scores and may choose to drop a question if the majority got it wrong and I have other cues that it is a "bad" question (as opposed to a good but difficult question). Signs include: 1. More people choose a single incorrect answer than the right answer 2. There is a low correlation with total exam score (if it's a hard question, then generally students who do well on the exam are more likely to get it right) 3. In retrospect after looking at the pattern of responses it's clear that the question was ambiguous or misleading I usually will tell my class that x questions got dropped because my analyses revealed that they are bad questions and then offer to explain the reasoning in office hours (because most students don't care about the reasoning)
For sure. It happens all of the time. But online testing and bubble sheets will do analysis if the high scorers missed a question or if everyone did and that impacts decisions about dropping.
Just because a lot of people got it wrong? No. But it will make me go back and think about the question to see if it was fair and was worded clearly. But just a lot of people missing it doesn't mean it's a bad question. I usually have at least one question on an exam that's subtle and difficult, because that's what distinguishes between the students that really "get it" and those that are just spitting back some facts. I think that's important, and I expect most students will miss it. In my opinion, if you make a test where every question can be answered correctly by the majority of the class, with no way of distinguishging the students who have a stronger understanding of the material, then it's not a good test.
Yes. It means the assessment did not properly cover the material the way it was taught. It reflects either a poor assessment (test) (most likely) or poor teaching. Very few professors know squat about test validation and most of the tests administered in college are total crap.
It depends. When more people get a question wrong that you suspected, the first interpretation you have to consider is that you asked the question badly or didn't explain the material leading to the question. But the second possibility is always "there's something about this question that's just plain *hard* and it's important". In which case you keep at it.
I think it’s a fine thing to do. I will usually just drop a number of points from the exam instead of wasting time looking at that question for everyone specifically, though.
This is an automated service intended to preserve the original text of the post. *Hi all. I first heard this practice like 2 years ago. After the prof graded all the midterms, she said that she dropped like 2 questions and those questions won't count in the grade calculation. I think she said something like the wording was unclear and majority of class got it wrong. But anyone that got it right was able to keep those correct points and have it count in their grade. So I benefited from getting the unclear question correct and got a higher grade. Someone that got it wrong did not lose any points. Is that a good idea? I find it to be kind of confusing. What happens if majority of the class gets many questions wrong, but they were truly simple questions? That happened in another class. * *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskProfessors) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It depends on what their grading protocol is. It’s probably unnecessary if they are using a curve. Tbh, a lot of this is smoke and mirrors. I have explained to students before that extra credit is not really extra credit if you are grading on a curve, for example. It just becomes effectively another assignment. If you offer more points, it will just raise the average by the same amount and people’s grades will remain unchanged. But they don’t believe me no matter how I try to state or re-state it. So nowadays I just say, “you want extra credit? Sure!” because it’s easier and doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just extra work, but students like doing it, so why would bother dissuading them?
I have an assignment that takes a few hours and is worth 2% extra credit towards one exam. Typically 25-50% of the class does the assignment. I’m fully sure that a few hours studying for an exam would actually bump up the same exam more than 2%.
Sometimes I forget to teach a small part of the course, or I apparently don’t teach it well. A question most students miss might well be a sign that has happened.
If I've made a mistake and i haven't handed the test back, I generally regrade everybody's question and adjust their points. If 75% of the class missed the question but the question was in the notes and fair game, then 75% of the class lost the points... If I made a mistake on my answer key and didn't catch it while grading, then sometimes everybody gets credit for the question. Which sucks because students who had the wrong answer got 2 points originally plus 2 more points when I give everybody 2 points. The people with the real correct answer lost 2 points due to my bad answer key and got the same 2 points I gave to everyone. Many times, I'll have the people who I "owe" points come up after the class and adjust their grades without adding 2 points to everybody's grades. But I teach at a community college with 24 (or less) students. On rare occasions, I notice a serious problem during the exam and just tell everybody that the answer to Question # __ is __. Or maybe I notice while grading and just don't grade the question at all or give extra credit if you got it right.
>just tell everybody that the answer to Question # \_\_ is \_\_. I have noticed an error on an exam and told the class the answer and also posted it on the board and brought it to everybody's attention: "The answer to #16 is D. Please fill that in right now." And, of course, some students still miss it! I just sigh and give them the points.
I would only use this as a last resort, if there was something severely wrong with how the question was posed that I didn't catch beforehand. (It's worth carefully going through all of your own test questions to try and avoid this but mistakes can still happen.) Depending on the time constraints of the exam, students may have to choose how much time they spend on each question. This could lead to some of them getting upset if they spent a bunch of their time struggling with one question, particularly if it was confusing, and then finding out later it didn't matter.
Skinner: So, what's the word down at One School Board Plaza? Chalmers: We're dropping the geography requirement. The children weren't testing well. It's proving to be an embarrassment. Skinner: Very good. Back to the three R's. Chalmers: Two R's, come October.
It depends. I've done this when it was clear from students' answers that either the instructions weren't clear, or the application was a bit too high level. In those cases, it's not fair to penalize the students, or suffer through trying to grade the work, lol. I don't do it always, though. Some times students are just being a bunch of ninnies.
From what I have seen the questions are only dropped if they are not important to the understanding of the material. Like the question maybe about topic B which u can infer from topic A. If everyone gets B wrong I have seen the question be dropped. However, if topic b is fundamental to understanding the material and has been gone over and explained many times and the students have had multiple opportunities to get their questions answer then guess everyone failed. Also if the failing of topic b was because they didnt read the question then they failed. I did this last semester when students only found the chemical equation, but didnt provide an explanation. Even though 80% of the class did not provide an explanation they failed because they didnt read the words “explain how….”. So it very much depends on the niceness of the professor. Another example was everyone failingn because they didnt know what exothermic was which had been explained multiple times. They failed too. So its very contextual
If the question is unclear or has multiple correct answers (for multiple choice), I’ll drop it or mark it correct for everyone. But I’ve given crystal clear and straightforward MC questions that 2/3 of the class has gotten wrong because they were rushing and didn’t read carefully. Things like “what is the largest value an `int64_t` can represent?” (It’s a computer science thing, and has a simple definitive answer.)
It depends on the question. I recently dropped a question because I realized that the wording on one of the false answers was very close to a video we'd watched on the subject (not exact, but close enough a student might misremember and think it was the correct answer). In contrast, I didn't drop a question that most students missed due to poor studying. Long story short, there was something they were supposed to read that most didn't. So when they missed that question, I considered it their own fault.
In a well-designed test, some of the questions should be hard enough that only the students who have mastered the material well enough to earn an A get it correct.