Large final exams are the best way to evaluate students.

Are large final exams and assignments (maybe 80%-100% of your mark) the best way to evaluate students, or are exams and assignments spread out through the term?

As you flesh out your position, state whether you agree or disagree with the title statement:

Large final exams are the best way to evaluate students.

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I very agree with this one, the final exam. Because it can be your ultimate final challenge for your school life, college life or university life. You can prove yourself that you had study hard for the exam, and achieve a good result.

Because of this existence of "Final Exam", students will be more hardworking and study hard, because there might be no second chance for them to resit.

It has been shown that some people know their subject extremely well but do really badly in exams. Having a system that puts a huge emphasis on the "final exam" is very unfair on those people. It also favours those with superior short term memories who can slack off most of the year and then cram like crazy 2 weeks before the finals and do better than those who have studied hard all year long. They pass the exam but then forget most of it when it comes to applying it in a job scenario.

Really, I feel that "final exams" are outdated and that there are far more effective ways of proving someone is ready for work, so I am very much against the title statement.

Whilst exams were never a big component of my degree study since I'm looking at teaching primary school, I still did learn a fair bit about the type of assessment they constitute.

There are two predominate forms of assessment in education, formative and summative. Formative assessments are those made during learning and are used to measure areas a student is weak, skilled and their gradual improvement. Summative assessments occur at the end of a topic/term/semester and are your typical written tests and exams that basically measure how much students know about the topic(s) at hand and how much information they have retained.

It was impressed on us early on, that formative assessments were generally a lot better for measuring a child's learning/more important when compared to summative assessments since rather than simply looking at results on a page, they were used to further teaching efforts and fill holes in someone's education. Although it should be noted it works best when complimented by summative assessments.

When you factor in the enormous stress of major exams (the extra study required to refresh your memory for a lot of people, the fact that your results can have an impact on your options in the future and the fact that your life outside of school is irrelevant to exams) it seems pretty obvious to me that the large formal exams we employ all around the world are generally not the greatest way to analyse a student's proficiency.

Evaluating success or understand based on a single measurement seems silly. But I think that everything should be looked at based on what is being taught/learned. If it is a single skill-based lesson (for instance, learning to write a simple computer program) then I think it's more fair (but not entirely fair) for there to be a significant amount of weight put on a final evaluation (whatever form that may be).

Our final Exams was cancelled ( regents ) and they just said "If you past the class you pass the regents" and that was that. It is stupid to judge a persons ability to do work based on final Exams, if you could use your grade to bypass college classes.

For Highschool students okay but not grade schoolers

I completely despise them. I don't see why we have them and why they are necessary. A small exam in class would be ok, but not regents or anything else that completely judges whether you pass or fail a class. Because for Earth Science, I passed the class but failed the regents, so I had to take it again in 11th grade and it was a nightmare. I hate final exams, like regents or state tests or anything like that. I don't mind quizzes or tests for classes, but having one that determines whether you pass or fail a class is blasphemy.

Midnight shadow said:

It also favours those with superior short term memories who can slack off most of the year and then cram like crazy 2 weeks before the finals and do better than those who have studied hard all year long. They pass the exam but then forget most of it when it comes to applying it in a job scenario.

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Literally the story of my entire educational life, including my Bachelor's degree lol

Esper said:

Evaluating success or understand based on a single measurement seems silly. But I think that everything should be looked at based on what is being taught/learned. If it is a single skill-based lesson (for instance, learning to write a simple computer program) then I think it's more fair (but not entirely fair) for there to be a significant amount of weight put on a final evaluation (whatever form that may be).

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This is the other problem with final exams: biased marking. Some subjects are relatively easy to mark like Maths and Science since there can only be one answer to a question (1+1=2 isn't something you can debate). However, other subjects like English and History are so subjective and rely so much on being able to argue correctly, that you could know everything about a period of history and still fail. Anyone who's seen "The History Boys" knows exactly what I mean. For those who haven't it's about a group of high school boys who are preparing to take the History entrance exams to get into university. They all know their field like the backs of their hands but their teacher says they will never get in unless they completely change the way they write their essays, to take a more interesting angle on what happened.

As it was said in the film "Thanks for smoking"

as long as you argue correctly, you are never wrong

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So a person can have all the knowledge they like and still fail a final exam. Now that is a flawed system if ever I saw one.

I think Final exams should not be THE primary factor. I know some people who are horrible test takers, but are good in the class otherwise, who loathe finals because this one thing influences the entire judgement.
It also generally unfair to judge someone on a singular action or event.

I think final exams are definitely a valid and useful way of evaluating students. Whether it's the best is debatable of course. My view has always been dependent on how much the exam is actually worth. If it is the only assessment (which is an extreme, I know), then I don't think it's very useful or fair. However, if it's used in conjunction with several other methods of assessment then I think it's a useful way to check the progress of students.

I think it's important to test the scope of knowledge someone as learned. What I mean by scope, is that test them in a variety of ways that gives assessors are more specific image of the students progress as a whole. Relying solely on an exam, I don't think, allows them to do that all. Not everyone is able to apply knowledge in the same way so it's important to cater for all individuals...but that delves into techniques such as standardized testing which is another topic.

Final exams are too limited:

1) Every student is different. A test will work for some, but not work for others. Just based on the student's affinity- some are better at reading, others at listening. Everyone takes in information differently.

2) A bad day for a smart student can make him/her preform poorly. And a good day for a dumb student can make him/her preform better than they would otherwise. The test cannot be an accurate measure of knowledge.

3) The test may not be the best format for the students to relay their knowledge. Some students struggle with multiple choice or with essay formats. Even if the test has both, the student will suck at one part, and do better at the other.

4) Language barriers. A student may know math or any subject well, but because the test is in English, they wont do as well. This isn't as big of an issue, but in places where there are larger immigrant populations or multicultural communities, it may be a bigger issue.

5) The stress. Final exams have a lot of importance, and it creates an atmosphere of stress and negativity.

For a final exam to be good, it would have to be tailored for each individual student, which is very difficult to do and would cost way too much money. Unfortunately, I do not know of a better solution to gauge a student's overall knowledge of a course.

I absolutely despise the education system in general, honestly. In my opinion, pretty much every method of student evaluation in use works for some and doesn't work for others, even if those students are equally able. 'Standardised' anything in education is an unfair measure, because it doesn't actually measure the student's ability at all, really.

I don't think it's even right for examinations that potentially determine the rest of your life to be put upon students at the age of 15/16. Anyway I think a final exam is better, as students may think they have more chances and might not work as hard for one of the tests/assignments which could be detrimental to the overall result.