Rate of nonsubmission of final exam increases year-on-year

The year-on-year rate of nonsubmission of final examinations increased sharply this fall in classes in which the final examination was comparably structured to a year ago. A year ago courses were residential, this fall courses were online with the exception of the laboratory portion of the science courses. The following report looks at MS 150 Statistics and SC 130 Physical Science final examination nonsubmission rates fall 2019 versus fall 2020. 

Details

In MS 150 Statistics the final examination was substantively similar to the final of a year ago. Both final examinations were done in Schoology using the test material item. Fall 2019 the final was held in room A204 during the prescribed two hour time slot. Fall 2020 the students had from 8:00 AM Pohnpei time on Wednesday December 9 to 6:00 PM Pohnpei time on Friday December 11. Once the student began the test there was no time limit set to complete the test. To accommodate possible power outages, the students were able to resume an incomplete test if they were logged out. The availability across multiple days was in recognition that some students might be traveling to a state campus to take their final on college computers. The course had 44 students at term end fall 2019 and 43 students at term end 2020.

The SC 130 Physical Science final examination in the fall of 2019 was delivered in A101 on paper. The fall 2020 final examination was delivered as a test material item in Schoology. As with the MS 150 Statistics final, the final was available from 8:00 AM Pohnpei time on Wednesday December 9 to 6:00 PM Pohnpei time on Friday December 11. The course had 19 students at term end fall 2019 and 15 students at term end fall 2020.

The use of a 6:00 PM Pohnpei time (GMT+11) due date was to put the due date at the end of the campus business day in Chuuk and Yap states (GMT +10). In the past, the regular residential final examination schedule concluded at 4:15 PM on the third day, with a slot reserved at 4:20 PM on the third day for all other classes, a "catch all" category for classes not in the regular schedule. I am not aware that this slot is much used and considered 4:15 PM to essentially be the end of the regular final examination period and thus the official end of the term. 

In fall 2020 MS 150 Statistics 14 of 43 students did not submit a final examination by 6:00 PM Pohnpei time on Friday. Eight of those 14 never started the final examination. Six started the final examination but did not submit prior to 6:00 PM. All six started their final examination on Friday, December 11. 

Four practice final examinations from prior terms were posted. These practice finals examinations were optional, students did not have to take them. If a student chose to do them, they could take the practice final as many times as they liked. With each submission the practice final would reveal the correct answers. The student's highest score would be retained as a homework assignment mark. In theory, by writing down these correct answers, a student should be able to get 100% on the practice final. Thus these practice finals allow a student to practice on an actual final and boost their mark in the course. 

Of the six students who started the final examination on Friday one might wonder if the six allowed enough time for themselves to finish the final. Of the six, only one student had taken the practice final exams. That student had completed all four of the practice final examinations. The student began their unsubmitted final at 11:36 AM. The student did not contact me indicating any difficulty had arisen during the day. The student should have been well prepared and ought to have been able to submit by the deadline. 

The other five students had not taken the practice final examination. All started the final examination on Friday, December 11. Their start times were 01:33 AM, 09:32 AM, 3:58 PM, 4:27 PM, and 5:42 PM Pohnpei time. Noting that the final examination in MS 150 Statistics was similar to the two hour residential exam, the first three should have finished by the due time. The last two students started with less than two hours to complete the final examination. Of the five, only one student would contact me on Friday evening after the submission deadline to request an extension of the time. This was the student who started at 5:42 PM.

The nature of tests in Schoology is such that a submission enablement time cannot be extended for a single student, if that would even be fair. Enabling submissions for one student would reopen the test for all students at that point. I decided that as the test had been available for three full days, and I had sent out reminders of the final earlier in the week, coupled with Friday being the end of the term by the college calendar, I would leave the deadline in place. To alter the deadline seemed tantamount to altering the published college calendar, an authority no faculty member possesses. Because I set no time limit on the final, the final did not time out and autosubmit. Thus those who missed the deadline to submit could not submit. 

I wrote to the one student who contacted me that sometimes late is too late, the final exam period and the term had come to a close. I would note that this student had often turned in late work during the term. There did not seem to be connectivity issues, just issues of organization and perhaps a tendency to put things off past the last minute. Allowing themselves 18 minutes to complete a two hour final seemed to be in keeping with their approach to getting work done at or after the last possible minute.

Later one of the MS 150 Statistics students who did not start the final examination contacted me, they thought they would have until midnight Friday to take the final. None of my tests nor assignments had used a midnight due date, I had always used a 6:00 PM due date. I do not know why a student might think the final would be different, but Schoology does display the due date and time wherever the assignment shows up. 

In SC 130 Physical Science five students of 15 in the two sections did not start the final examination during the three day period. I have not been contacted by any of the five students. I do not know what happened.

The sharp increase in nonsubmission of the final exam in the two courses is an area that I intend to address spring 2021. I now realize that I will have to put a time limit on the final examination in order to trigger the autosubmit at the end of the final examination period. With a timed test the test will submit itself when the timer runs out. With an untimed test, the test cannot be submitted after the enabled date expires. Note that the enabled date can be different than the due date. This allows one to set a due date while still allowing for late submission after the due date. This term I set the due date and end of the enabled period to the same time thereby disallowing late submission after Friday evening. Perhaps the due date should be set 24 hours earlier on Thursday as a spur to students who wait until the last minute and beyond. 

SC/SS 115 Ethnobotany was not comparable year-on-year as a year ago the class had a field identification final examination and this term a unit test four was scheduled during the final examination period. That said, two of the 20 students did not complete unit test four, which is statistically identical to the two of 23 students who missed the field final examination fall 2019. Why ethnobotany submission rates held stable year-on-year is not known. The unit four test, like the finals in statistics in physical science, was available for the same three day period.