Conducting Educational Research

WRITING A RESEARCH QUESTION
APPENDIX 2-A: SAMPLE CHAPTER ONES
EXAMPLE 1 (REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF CHRIS STILES)
THE POTENTIAL POWER OF TESTWISENESS
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
As an educator, nothing is more frustrating than handing a wretchedly low test
score to a student who works diligently and tries his hardest. This is the student
who puts in 110%, hands in all assignments, works well in collaborative student
groups- yet still fails one examination after the other. These types of students seem
to have two different learning tendencies. On one hand, the students possess skills
that enable them to interact well with others and demonstrate sound work ethic,
while on the other, they are simply not able to convert these abilities into successful
test grades. It is disconcerting to hand back exams to these students when their
effort and in-class contributions seem to be inversely proportionate to their overall
test performance.
The ability to write a sound exam is a vital learned skill for any successful
student. Whether to demonstrate proficiency in core subjects, complimentary courses,
or for a government issued driver’s license, exams are a common fact of life that
we are all forced to face. Many factors may affect students’ ability to achieve
high grades on an exam. At some point or another, we have all been faced with
these stressful hurdles. The stumbling blocks test takers often encounter usually
encompass some level of test anxiety. Any activity which measures a person’s
competencies with a score which reflects pass or failure, ultimately raises the
stakes of that evaluative activity. Whether it be due to lack of preparation, inability
to recollect requisite facts at the crunch time, or simply tripping up in the format
of the exam, a test can present students with the opportunity to feel like a learned
success story or an inept failure.
From an early age, students are coached to take a better exam. In the province of
Alberta, students are required to complete a standardized exam as early as nine
years of age. They then continue to write them in three year intervals culminating
in the completion of diploma exams throughout their graduating year. While all
educators surely agree that written exams are only one of a myriad of acceptable
assessments, they seem to garner the majority of weighting and emphasis throughout
a student’s educational career. The key, then, is to prepare students to assist them
to enhance their scores on any given exam.
The buzz word that describes this process involves enlightening students in
developing a competent aptitude to demonstrate “testwiseness.” Operationally
defined, this involves training students to utilize strategies to improve their results
largely independent from the material being assessed. Case in point, this means
being able to write a better exam on the French Revolution without having to know
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