Conway, Handlin, Riesman Disagree On Concept of Ideal Exam Question

The ideal final examination, according to John J. Conway, who lectures in Soc. Sci. 6, would be a tape recording of a group of students engaged in a heated dinner table conversation of a course they were taking. "There they would be participating in the course, refining spontaneous opinions which they can examine more thoroughly later on."

Conway objects to examination questions which "put the student in a box." "Frederick the Great was neither a great general nor a great politician; but he was a great king. Discuss." Often, he said, this sort of question leads the student to recount a set of specialized facts, discouraging any ideas except the lecturer's and leading the student to rely too heavily on the standard of academic expertise.

Assuming that Harvard students are intelligent enough to form their own conclusions, Conway attempts to make his exam questions "open-ended"--"Discuss Frederick the Great." This approach, he maintains, allows students to discuss their own ideas without restrictions, and shows them that the non-expert can hold valuable opinions.

Oscar Handlin, professor of History, who teaches History 163, feels that "open-ended" questions are not helpful to students. They need to have ground rules, to see the clear lines of a question.

However, Handlin is not entirely convinced that examinations provide the best test of a student's knowledge. For several years, until the course grew too big for sections, he assigned final papers, but without section men, students have no one with whom they can discuss their conclusions.

Even when he assigned final papers, Handlin found it difficult to determine the ideal approach. "If I let students choose their own topics, they often read intensively in a narrow area, tangential to the course; if I assigned the topic, attempting to pull the course together, it became too much like a final exam."

David Riesman assigns a final paper to his students in Soc. Sci. 136. He is able to read the papers himself, he points out, because he has a lighter teaching load than most other professors.

"Exams," he feels, "frequently interfere with education; students have been conditioned by 12-15 years of seeking a verdict." He defines grades as "the money of the academic system," which gives students an easy definition of their value, and adds that he wants to make education "self-directed--which is harder for the student," but "allows him to construct the course for himself--which is what we want."