The Question After the Correct Answer: How to Test Whether a Student Really Understands
A student gives the correct answer. For many educational tasks, that is where assessment ends. The definition matches the textbook. The formula is correct. The date is remembered. The grammatical form is accurate. We record success and move on. But there is another question that can reveal much more: What should we ask after the correct answer? Because retrieving the right information and understanding the system behind that information are not the same achievement. The Correct Answer Is Evidence — But Evidence of What? A correct answer tells us something important. The student may have remembered information, recognized a pattern, applied a procedure, understood a concept — or combined several of these abilities. The answer alone does not always tell us which. That is why assessment becomes more informative when we change the task after success rather than only after failure. Ask: Why? Change one condition. Present an unfamiliar example. Ask for a comparison. Reque...