Hacker News Reader

Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

> An "A" in calculus should mean that you can do calculus and that evaluation should be independent of your own strengths

If you can't do calculus, extra time is not going to help you. Its not like an extra 30 minutes in a closed room environment is going to let you rederrive calculus from first principles.

The theory behind these accomedations is that certain people are disadvantaged in ways that have nothing to do with the thing being evaluated.

The least controversial version would be someone that is blind gets a braile version of the test (or someone to read it to them, etc). Sure you can say that without the accomadations the blind student cannot do calculus like the other students can, but you are really just testing if they can see the question not if they "know" calculus. The point of the test is to test their ability at calculus not to test if their eyes work.

View on HN

The braille example you give makes absolutely perfect sense. The blind student is being evaluated same as the other students and the accommodation given to the blind student (a Braille version of the test) would be of no use to the other students.

But extra test time is fundamentally different, as it would be of value to anyone taking the test.

If getting the problems in Braille helps the student demonstrate their ability to do Calculus, we give them the test in Braille. If getting 30 minutes of extra time helps all students demonstrate their ability to do calculus, why don't we just give it to all students then?

> But extra test time is fundamentally different, as it would be of value to anyone taking the test.

That depends on how the test is designed.

Some tests have more material than anyone can hope to finish. Extra time is always valuable in such a test.

However that type of test is generally bad because it more measures speed then skill.

Most tests are designed so the average person is able to finish all the questions. In those tests more time for the average person is not helpful. They have already done it. Sure they could maybe redo all the questions, but there is very diminishing returns.

If the extra 30 minutes improves someone who needs the accomedation's score by 50%, and increases the average student's score by 2% or even not at all, clearly the same thing isn't going on.

So i would disagree that extra time helps everyone.

Just think about it - when was the last time you had a final exam where literally every person handed in the exam at the last moment. When i was in school, the vast majority of people handed in their exam before the time limit.

> why don't we just give it to all students then?

I actually think we should. Requiring people to get special accomedations biases the system to people comfortable with doing that. We should just let everyone get the time they need.

> However that type of test is generally bad because it more measures speed then skill.

Isn't speed and fluency part of skill and mastery of the material?

> Just think about it - when was the last time you had a final exam where literally every person handed in the exam at the last moment. When i was in school, the vast majority of people handed in their exam before the time limit.

I think almost all of my high school exams and at least half of my college finals had >90% of students remaining in the exam hall when the proctor called time.

> Isn't speed and fluency part of skill and mastery of the material?

Perhaps this comes down to definitions, but i would say that in general, no, speed is not part of mastering material in intellectual pursuits.

Sometimes it might be correlated though. Other times it might be negatively correlated, e.g. someone who memorized everything but doesn't understand the principles will have high speed and low mastery.

If you saying a good test measures skill and not speed, what is the rationale for withholding the extra time from some students? I'm not saying you have to use all the time. I finished many a college exam early and left. No biggie.

I'm just saying if you are going to let some kids stay longer, let everyone stay longer. And you seem to agree on that point.

Either have a time limit for everyone or no one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com