The Use of the Summary Card in Chemistry Examinations P. C. Healy and R. C. Landbeck GriffithUniversity, Queensland. Australia M. G. A'B. Hewson N.I.P.R. Johannesburg. South Africa Examinations in chemistry courses frequently require students to memorize large quantities of information. This leads to anxiety and causes many students to avoid learning more meaningfully. A simple method reported by Whitmer' can help alleviate the stress and promote understanding rather than recall. Students are provided with an 8- X 5-in. card on which they are allowed to write anything they choose and take it into the examination. The value of the card lies not onlv in reducing, the . ~need to memorize but also in promoting knowledge organization that is reuuired for the nreparatim of the card. The latter is in line with'the constructivist view of learning in which the learner actively constructs his or her understandine of facts and events.-~hiiinvolves establishing relationshipsbetween ideas, since knowledge is thouaht to be stored in memorv in oreanized clusters or chunksr~eif2suggests that poor !&owle&e organization may result in Door achievement. He DroDoses that . . if students can he induced to organrze their knowledge more effecttvely,leaminp, will become more meaninaful and student achievement will consequently he improved: The preparation of an 8 X 5 card for an examination should provide an opportunity for students to hecome actively involved in knowledge organization. By examining the ways students prepared the cards, the use they made of them during the examination, and their examinations results, it should he possible to determine if these assertions can be supported. Students in the first-year science course a t Griffith University studying courses in thermodynamics and organic chemistry were told in the first lecture of the course they could hring into the examination an 8 X 5 card. They were given no instructions regarding what should he written on the card. After the examination the students completed a questionnaire designed to discover how they had used the cards. The group showed improved performance on the exam when compared with a group of students taking a similar course in 1982. The failure rate dropped sienificantlv. The number of students arhievingover 756 wasireater thbn the previous year, and the 1983 group had fewer students with ~
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very low marks. A tentative conclusion from the data is that t h e card alleviated the problem of memorizing facts and complicated formulae. Thus, a better assessment of student understanding of chemistry was possible, and questions involving comprehension, application, and analysis could he asked, rather than simple recall questions. The findings relating to student study patterns obtained from questionnaires are of greater interest. Eighty-three percent of the students found the summary cards useful, and most indicated that their learning emphasis shifted from rote memorization to more active efforts to understand and apply information. One student wrote "the card was useful as organizing notes led LO more effrctive study." Surprisingly only 52% said they made areat use of the cards during the rxarnination. The criteria used by the students in selec%ng what to put on the card ranged considerahly. The majority (64%)said they selected relevant or important points from the lecture notes. Twenty-seven percent compressed the entire course onto the card while 9% indicated that they had little idea of what to put on the cards. I t can-he concluded that the value of the summary card was the students' active involvement in organizing their knowledge for the cards. In addition the cards served as a memory aid during the examinations, which reduced the students' anxiety levels. Note added in proof: Since the acceptande of this paper, we have had the opportunitv to analvze the use of summary cards by the 1984 cohort of "r~ducing'~photocopiers to the university which resulted in many more students simply reproducing their entire set of lecture notes on the summary card-and thus successfully bypassing our attempts to involve them in any 'active' learning process. ~~~~
' Wnitmer. J. C.. J. C ~ E MEDLC.. . 60, 85 (19831.
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Reif. F., 'Understanding and teacning problem solving in physics," Proceedings of the International Workshop on Pnys cs Educalion. La Londe, France, 1983.
Volume 62
Number 9 September 1985
779
