RELIANCE ON REVIEW MATERIALS, SOLUTION MANUALS AND TEST BANKS GROUP 5

Review of Related Literature

Concept of Dependency

Every individual has his/her own learning style. It is a vital factor that

greatly influences the way a person understands information, solves a problem

and as well as on his/her academic performance.

A certain student’s learning style varies from others. Yonker (2011 as cited

in Biggs, 1987) enumerated three kinds of learning styles: (1) the deep approach

focuses on learning of the purpose itself, with abstruse level of theories and an

inherent want to study; (2) the surface approach highlighted the duplication of

what is taught to fulfill the evaluation requisites; (3) the achieving approach which

refers to studying to build up the likelihood of attaining better grades and/or

developed career perspectives. In the present time, student techniques of

studying may be classified into the aforementioned styles. Clearly, it should be

noted that those who will be taking a licensure examination will require a deep

understanding of the courses. Thus, it is imperative for students, particularly the

accounting majors, to exert more time and effort in order to be productive in their

future career.

In the study administered by Yonker, students were briefed that questions

will be pulled out from a test bank of a textbook publisher. The questionnaire

taken by the students was composed of the same number of factual and applied

multiple choice questions (MCQs). The factual questions pertain to theories level,

while applied questions to application level wherein methodical learning is

employed in suitable conditions. The results were students' standing is low in

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applied MCQs, which concerns complicated thinking compared to factual MCQs

which necessitate little depth of understanding. This definitely shows that some

students are having challenges in applying the theories in situational problems.

Hence, a common conflict that must be solved or continuously monitored.

Lack of time is one factor that could mainly affect one’s learning and

academic performance. This might cause students to rely on a kind of learning

style that isn’t that effective especially for accountancy students who would soon

take a licensure exam. They would tend to memorize or familiarize the process of

solving a problem rather than to conceptually understand the theory and process.

And also believing in the thought that they don’t have enough time to

conceptually understand all the topics included in the exam. American

Psychological Association defined Memorization as:

“The ability to retain information or a representation of past experience,

based on the mental processes of learning or encoding, retention across

some interval of time, and retrieval or reactivation of the memory.”

On the other hand, conceptual understanding is a higher degree of

memorizing something, where it also involves gaining insights and appreciation

on that certain thing being studied.

Moreover, Craik and Lockhart (1972) discussed on their Theory of Levels

of processing that the idea of the way information is encoded affects how well it

is remembered. Thus, the deeper the level of processing, the easier the

information is to recall. Considering the insufficiency of time accountancy

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students have, it would mainly cause them to just excessively rely on the said

learning materials due to insufficiency of time left before the day of examination.

As a result, they would just rely on the available learning materials such as

review materials, solution manuals and test banks.

Concept of Review Materials, Solution Manuals and Test Banks

Drazi (2012) described a test bank as queries and answers which are

likely to be asked in any course, while a solution manual basically comprises the

whole solutions to the exercises of the textbooks. Solution manual is practical

because it is commonly divided into parts that show its origin for convenient

utilization and smooth understanding.

Easy access to these kinds of materials is utilized by most of the students

for doing their activities and preparing for their examination. A study conducted

by Habibi, Roti Roti & Alaei (2015), through the use of survey on the students

and faculty of the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Science (EMS) at the

University of Wisconsin-Platteville, revealed that 98% of the students used

solution manuals for various reasons, such as confirming answers to their

assigned works, copying answers for full credit, and using it as a basis for a new

approach to the problems by the author. On the other side, from the perspective

of the faculty, the use of solution manuals by the students has its own damaging

impact on students' learning ability. Some students use it for enhancing their

knowledge regarding the topic or for confirming what they have learned, but

according to the study of Wotapka (2018) exposed that others use this for the

purpose of memorizing the answers to pass the test and intending to cheat.

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It is undeniable that creating questions is a hard task, so most of the

teachers simply copy questions that they will include in their test questionnaires

from test banks, test book reviewers, or even from their previous set of

examinations. With this, students can easily track the source of the questions

which will give them an access to the possible questions that will appear on the

test papers. This situation increases the tendency of the students to simply

memorize the answers, instead of understanding the concept of the topics

presented by the instructor. A study by Gehringer & Peddycord III (2013) was

conducted to approach this problem by using about 140 respondents, mostly

engineering instructors, made significant changes or approach on their

examinations to better challenge the learnings acquired by students, such as

exchanging problems with others instructors from other institutions, changing

words in the problems, letting students create problems that will be assigned to

the class, and others.

Osterloh (2013, as cited in Schmidt, 2016) Senate president Rachel said

that “Test banks can inflate grades without increasing understanding…” It is

highly important for instructors to create their own questions, or at least, make

major modifications to the copied questions to truly assess and measure the

knowledge acquired by the students regarding the topics presented. This

technique can encourage students to put an effort into their studies and widen

their understanding about the lessons, which in turn can be beneficial for them in

the long run, specifically for those students who are preparing for the licensure

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examinations. Meanwhile, the said objective may not be achieved if the students

would fully depend on the solutions illustrated in the available materials.

Concept of CPA Licensure Examination

The Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license is considered one of the

most difficult licenses to earn in the Philippines. To be a CPA in the Philippines,

one must graduate with a degree in accounting and pass a grueling licensure

examination that encompasses six subjects in total (Perez, 2015). Each subject

must have a grade no lower than 65% and a general average of 75% (RA9298,

section 16). Another attestation to its difficulty is the ghastly decline of the

national passing rate in the previous years (Herrero, 2015). While most

graduates get disheartened at the thought of the low passing rate, passing this

examination has become a testament to the preparedness and competence of

those who attempted to tackle it (Perez, 2015; Baysa, 2015, as cited by Castillo,

2017).

Advantages of Using Review Materials, Solution Manuals and Test Banks

Nowadays, test banks and other solution manuals are widely distributed

either on the internet, review centers, or physical stores. There are benefits and

drawbacks in using such materials into the learning process of the students.

Some students think that solutions manuals are essential in understanding the

problem solving process (Habibi et al., 2015) thus contributing to them gaining

knowledge on how to do it on their own. In the students’ defense, some faculty

lack adequate time to teach the topics that are essential to the subjects, thus

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increasing their reliance on solution manuals to study the remaining topics for

themselves (Habibi et al., 2015).

According to Drazi (2012), one benefit of using test banks and solution

manuals is the application of learning into functional use. In addition, students

who employ solution manuals and test banks are usually more assured, which

conveys that they spend their energy by concentrating on answering the

questions rather than being anxious to questions to skip or that may occur.

Moreover, the diversity of queries makes it helpful in forming strategies in

approaching every kind of question.

Furthermore, Sobejana and Diaz (2016) have considered that one of the

test bank's advantages is the maximization of student's time yielding to efficiency

and effectiveness due to its use, wherein previous tests can be available for

review in systematized form. With the aforementioned benefits of solution

manuals and test banks, it is unquestionable that students are attracted to use

them for acquiring and applying the concepts taught inside the classroom.

Kumar (2016) also noted that due to vast coverage of topics being

discussed, solution manuals offer an alternative way of learning these topics in a

short period of time. Practicing with these solution manuals builds efficiency on

the part of the students as they engage in problem solving. He also emphasized

that solution manuals are easily accessible through the internet for free which

makes it an effective, yet cheap learning opportunity for students.

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Disadvantages of Using Review Materials, Solution Manuals and Test

Banks

As defined in the Oxford University Press, test bank is a ready-made

electronic testing resource that is customizable by lecturers for their teaching.

More specifically, a publisher test bank is a pool of exam questions and answers

provided to the faculties by textbook publishers. Furthermore, according to

Burkholder (2019), Google drive is an academic archive which qualifies to the

definition of a test bank. Elaborately characterized, academic archives are logs of

previous exams, homework assignments, and study materials for a given class

over a period of time. They are either physical or digital.

Students and professors have different perspectives regarding the use of

test banks and student manuals. Professors view it as a violation of integrity by

the continuous usage of accessible review materials, but as for students,

checking these resources is just a mere study consultation (Gehringer &

Peddycord III, 2013). The attitudinal mismatch between the students and

professors can cause concerns that can have a detrimental effect on student

learning and teaching effectiveness. (McNeill, Minichiello, & Hailey, 2012).

. Students use the items from this pool of questions and answers as their

learning tool especially in preparation for major and departmental examinations.

However, utilization of test banks has its own pros and cons.

One side that should be taken into consideration is the copyrights of the

publisher, as well as the property rights of the author of the book involved in the

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solution manual or test bank. The sale of these materials in an open market

involves legal and ethical factors. Students could have been acquired from a third

party vendor not from the publisher nor the author, and with the advancement of

technology, one can easily pass the file from person to person thus, directly

impacts the profitability of the persons foregoing. The students, who involved

themselves in this unethical and illegal purchasing of exam resources that are

restricted, often stolen intellectual property, are all for the reason of obtaining

higher grades. (Savage & Simkin, 2010).

Not disregarding the fact that some students use the resources as

genuine help, those readily available solution manuals serve a convenient way of

completing most of the academic requirements that they need. However, some

just plainly copy textbook questions and post it on a website. These may harm

their future practices because of the accustomed habits they have exhibited

during their undergraduate years, “Patterns of behavior that are formed in college

become accepted behavior in the workplace and life in general” (Bullard, 2013).

Aside from making it a necessity for professors to continually create and/or

modify questionnaires, one of the many drawbacks of test bank usage is the

acceleration of students’ grades without adding so much to their understanding

(Osterloh, 2013). Wotapka (2018) also stated that authors argued that the

students’ use of test banks could make it more challenging for professors to

accurately evaluate who among the class perform really well, because top

scorers could possibly come from two groups – those who have a deep

foundation of the concepts and those who only memorize the answers from test

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banks. A statistical analysis of students’ answers proved that 48% of students

have used publisher test banks and these same people have performed about

30% better on exams than those who do not have access to similar review

materials (Wotapka, 2018).

It has been a major hurdle in the learning process of the students, with the

extensive use of solution manuals. This does not only have a major impact on

their performance, but also could hamper their learning of the topic at hand.

Having so much faith in solution manuals, rather than on their own capabilities

highly impacts not only their conceptual understanding, but also their critical

thinking ability that are essential on every learning process needed. Lack of

having these intellectual skills, discourages students from trying and forming their

own solutions, thus the instant gratification of solutions (Roy, 2019).

While it is important for students to maintain high or at least good general

point average (GPA), it is also inevitably essential to conduct an honest self-

evaluation and assessment whether they have gained long-term knowledge. In

the end, upon taking the CPA Licensure Exam in the case of accounting

students, what they can bring as arms to pass are the concepts they have

learned from undergraduate school, not solely based on their GPA.

Relatively, improper and unproductive referencing on test banks may have

an adverse implication on the career path the students would have to choose.

Those who simply memorized answers from test banks could make it harder for

themselves attaining the position they have been eyeing. They might receive

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poor evaluations from employers or might as well struggle passing certification

exams, and this consequently reflects poorly on the institution they graduated

from (Wotapka, 2018).

Another downside of test bank, based on Cheng and Crumbley’s findings,

is its deterrence to equality among students. There are students who make use

of it for the sake of learning, while there are some who exploit its availability to

transpire unethical behavior such as cheating. One scenario that exhibits

disparity is the non-availability or non-accessibility of the same learning materials

to other groups of students who may suffer real consequences of lower grades

compared to those who are able to utilize such materials (Wotapka, 2018).

The primary purpose of exams is to assess the knowledge obtained by a

student, thus poor test items that came from the test bank can affect the overall

reliability and validity of the exam may be lowered, in connection of poor chosen

items from the test bank. The dependency on available test banks likely

increases because there is difficulty in constructing quality multiple choice

examinations (Richman & Hrezo, 2017).

While students can benefit from the use of test banks and/or solution

manuals, the exploitation of these materials can cause serious aftermath to the

performance of the students, as they miss the learning process, which reduces

their education and possible future employment opportunities according to (Bain,

2015)

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