The majority of Jesuit students were offered a non-traditional assessment, but a third still are offered none.
December assessments are never a hit for Jesuit students. And because of this, I wanted to get a deeper look – via a student opinion poll – at the dreaded December assessments.
Methodology
To conduct this poll in a method that avoided potential and probable skews, I decided to get 20 students from each of the four grade levels; and in each grade level, I sought to get 5 students from each quartile as based on class rank.
Since I did not have access to such information, I consulted Jesuit’s Patrick Naughton to create the list with his extensive resources on grades, transcripts, report cards, scheduling and more. Mr. Naughton sent that list to me – with all the names scrambled (revealing no information on a particular student’s quartile – via email.
Participants then received an email from me containing an attached PDF form with the 20 survey questions. That PDF can be downloaded here.
Upon receiving the responses – in form of an annotated PDF (done by either iAnnotate or Notability) – I tallied up all the valid responses and vacated responses to questions that were either not answered or did not follow instructions (i.e. a few questions asked for the most, and some students circled more than one answer.)
Privacy
The poll participant’s privacy was taken into serious account. I, the conductor of the poll and manager of the poll’s entire operations, feel that nothing in this report is in any way too revealing to the Jesuit community and the general public. Indeed, the names of the participants in the poll (those asked and those who actually responded) will never be released. If you have any questions regarding privacy, please feel free to contact me via moodle.
Yield
Of the 80 students that I requested to participate in the poll, 21 students – 3 seniors, 4 juniors, 7 sophomores, and 7 freshmen – responded with completed surveys. Therefore, the yield of this poll was 26.25%. It should also be noted that this number represents approximately 1.9% of the Jesuit student population. In comparison, polls such as those done by Gallup, a major polling group, in the 2012 Presidential election typically contained 500 respondents, or approximately 0.017% of the total population in the United States.
Results
The following graphs put the results into illustration for each one of the 20 questions in the survey. The majority of Jesuit students (57%) took at least 5 December Assessments.
The majority of Jesuit students (57%) took at least 5 December Assessments.
The majority of Jesuit students (57%) have a favorable opinion on this year’s December Assessment calendar scheduling format.
Nearly 100% of Jesuit students did not plan on missing December Assessments.
The majority of Jesuit students were offered a non-traditional assessment, but a third still are offered none.
A large percentage of Jesuit students are teetering on the edge of a letter grade change – 84% with at least 1 class in that situation.
Science comes in as the toughest final according to Jesuit students. It should also be noted that 3 students’ answer responses were invalid for this question.
The majority of Jesuit students believed that their English and Theology finals would be the least challenging final. It should be noted that 1 student provided an invalid response for this question.
Despite being the least challenging December Assessments according to Jesuit students, English and Theology required the most preparation time.
Not only did many students feel that English and Theology required the most preparation time, but many students also felt that those exact same subjects required the least preparation time. It should be noted that one respondent provided an invalid response to this particular question.
The near supermajority of Jesuit students (Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors) plan to study more this year than the previous year for December Assessments.
Though split between the responses “very challenging” and “challenging,” Jesuit Freshmen overwhelmingly believed that their first set of December Assessments at Jesuit were going to be no easy feat.
Nearly 80% of Jesuit students received a concrete study guide from at least three of their instructors.
Approximately 1/4 of Jesuit students were not offered an official review session outside of class time while a little more than 1/3 were offered just one official review session outside of class time.
2/5 of Jesuit students planned to study in a group, but 50% were rather uncertain about those possibilities.
70% of Jesuit students planned to put in at least a solid 6 hours of studying and reviewing for all their December Assessments.
Nearly 80% of Jesuit students planned to study for their most challenging assessment for at least an hour and a half.
Approximately 80% of Jesuit students planned to put in anywhere from 0 minutes to 1 hour of studying for their least challenging December Assessment.
The majority of Jesuit students believe that the weight of December Assessments was just right while 45% believe that December Assessments bear too much weight in their grade for the class.
60% of Jesuit students believe that December Assessments do not reflect their knowledge while 25% are not so sure. On the other hand, 15% believe that December Assessments properly reflect their attained knowledge.
45% of Jesuit students believe that non-traditional December Assessments more accurately – to some degree – reflect their attained knowledge in the class while 35% believe that non-traditional December Assessments less accurately – to some degree – reflect their attained knowledge.
Taken together, this polling report offers a nice insight to the minds of Jesuit students who might not have voiced their opinions or revealed important data. While some thoughts were perhaps reiterated, others shed new light unforeseen by my personal expectations.
Going forward, I have hope that teachers and administrators at Jesuit will consider this data when creating assessments, planning study review sessions or making broad changes to exam format, scheduling and more.
Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas offers young men an excellent, Catholic education in the classical Jesuit tradition with the purpose of forming a community of men with high moral principles and service to others.
