An exam is a moral document

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.