Is it best to avoid taking exams in the afternoon?

A Danish study confirms that it’s harder to think clearly at the end of the day, and this might impact when and how schools and universities hold their examinations. Small, but important, effects of the time of day influences standardized test scores. That’s because test scores drop as the school day continues (Pacific Standard, February 16, 2016). So is it best to avoid taking exams in the afternoon?

Three researchers conducted the study on cognitive fatigue and students’ performances on standardized tests – Hans Sievertsen from the Danish National Centre for Social Research in Copenhagen, Marco Piovesan from the Department of Economics at the University of Copenhagen, and Francesca Gino from the Harvard Business School of Harvard University in Boston.

The Danish researchers analyzed scores from every student who took the Danish National Tests between the 2009-2010 and 2012-2013 school years. There were 10 tests studied in total. These included reading in grades 2, 4, 6, and 8, mathematics in grades 3 and 6, and geography, physics, biology, and chemistry in grades 7 and 8. A total of 2,034,564 test scores were studied, representing 570,376 students in 2,105 schools. Tests were given in three parts, presented to students in random order, and lasted throughout the day, with breaks at 10:00am and midday.

The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that as each hour passes before starting a test, it drags down the scores by a little bit, meaning that students who take a test late in the day will perform ‘noticeably worse’ than if they took the test earlier in the day.

Percentile rankings on a 100-point scale declined by 0.2 of a point per hour on average. However, how much they dropped, or whether they dropped at all, changed throughout the day.

Students who took a test at 9:00am ranked 1.35 points lower than the students who took the test at 8:00am. Ranks increased by 0.37 points after the 10:00am rest break, but dropped again by 0.58 points for tests taken at 11:00 am.

Tests are designed (supposedly) to determine what has been learned, although this may have racial, economic, and cognitive biases. Researchers attempted to take this into account. The three researchers also estimated the effects of parental income and other demographic measures.

On average, taking a test one hour later in the day was about the same as parents making US $1,000 less, or parents being educated one month less, or children having about 10 fewer days of schooling per year. All of these, the researchers note, are not large effects, but important ones.

Is it best to avoid taking exams in the afternoon? Not necessarily. Instead, schools and universities should consider cognitive fatigue when planning rest breaks between tests, and the overall length of school days – including test days – and whether it is feasible for schools to adjust scores for the time of day the tests were taken.

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/test-scores-drop-as-the-school-day-drags-on

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/02/09/1516947113

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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