Everett Community College (EvCC) is a public community college in Everett, Washington. EvCC educates more than 19,000 students every year at locations throughout Snohomish County, Washington, with most students and faculty at the main campus in Everett.
In principle, exam retakes could benefit students in part by providing incentives to review and re-attempt types of problems that initially took them by surprise. A possibly complementary way of reducing negative consequences of surprising exam problems is to use exam preview methods to make each exam less surprising. This four-part study explored the feasibility and efficacy of combining exam retakes with an exam preview method called Test Question Templates (TQTs). Part 1 shows that, in a sample of 93 undergraduate anatomy & physiology (A&P) syllabi, < 10% explicitly allow exam retakes. Part 2 reports indirect evidence that exam retakes might benefit student learning even in courses that use exam previews. Part 3 indicates student feedback consistent with Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT), with widespread student approval of an implementation of exam retakes designed to maximize student motivation by not requiring submission of additional homework, by offering retakes during regular class hours, and by fully replacing prior scores with improved scores. Part 4 shows that, over four years of implementing this policy in undergraduate A&P courses, students with initial exam scores < 75% attempted more retakes and improved exam scores by more than students with initial exam scores >85%. While exam previews and exam retakes both require up-front investment of instructor effort, this study provides quantitative and qualitative data to support the simultaneous use of both. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
This paper critiques self-help literature for promoting personal boundaries while neglecting the value of boundary ambiguity, which is essential to care relations. Acknowledging the sufferings that undergird the term "boundary issues," it reframes the cause of such experiences through Irigaray's theory of gendered individuation. It argues that sexism produces structural obstacles against women's ability to own their desires, and boundary-setting remains an inadequate solution because it is modeled after a masculine image of individuality. It draws on Irigaray's concept of place-making to offer an alternative solution that does not devalue temporary boundary ambiguities.
College science exams are an important and widespread marker for student progress towards technical careers. Predominantly enacted using traditional teaching practices, exams also represent an opportunity for significant improvement in higher education. To explore the potential benefits of a particular style of exam assessment known as exam preview methods, a mixed methods experimental design was enacted in science classrooms across fields and with five faculty instructors at community colleges in the United States. Parallel sections were randomly assigned to be assessed either with the faculty’s traditional method or with exam preview methods, and data (primarily coded interviews and learning gains) were analyzed for impacts of implementation. The results together suggest significant benefits for students in exam preview sections when triangulated between different types of data. When weighed against a modest average time cost for implementation of the new method, these data suggest that exam preview methods may be a straightforward and useful innovation for a range of science classrooms. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
NEW & NOTEWORTHY It is sometimes said that “a budget is a moral document.” In other words, despite common perceptions of a budget as a dry set of numerical tabulations, the corresponding decisions as to how money is collected and spent express the moral values of the budget writers. In this essay, I use my personal experiences as a classroom teacher and science education researcher to argue that an exam should be considered a moral document too. My argument rests on three propositions: first, that assessing students is a core responsibility of teaching; second, that our exams reflect our values; and third, that our values deserve explicit articulation and robust discussion.
