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The A-level exam results are out in the UK. Over 350,000 teenagers have been placed on undergraduate courses, according to UCAS, the organization that manages applications to UK full-time higher education courses. And while they jump for joy, excited at the prospect of going to university, some social commentators and education critics are harrumphing.

They feel that despite their success, these exam-savvy youngsters are woefully ill-prepared for the real world. And that the ones who go to university are simply entering outdated institutions that don’t prepare them for the world of work.

Most university courses aren’t vocational. Yet, the debts that mount up throughout a course (an average of £50,000) are forcing students to create a “personal brand” and a portfolio of work before they leave – so that they have a chance of competing in a crowded marketplace once they graduate.

In the past, students were only expected to step-up their writing, thinking and analytical skills while at university. Now, they’re expected to take Instagram-worthy internships and use social media to network their way to success. They’re expected to document their skills and capabilities across a range of social media so that they can effectively secure work opportunities.

A report from the Department of Education showed that in 2017, graduates and postgraduates had higher employment rates than non-graduates. And that the average, working-age graduate earned £10,000 more than the average non-graduate.

So good, so far. But this emphasis on securing work is contributing to a hole in their university life. This manifests as poorer quality reading and writing skills on the essays they write throughout their course. And the writing they do in the business world. This is not new. And it’s not down to youngsters spending more time on Snapchat than perusing the abridged works of Shakespeare. But it’s a skill gap that doesn’t seem to be closing.

Many arrive at university after years of teachers “teaching to the test”. Students haven’t necessarily been given the opportunity to think for themselves. At least, not in an academic sense. Their teachers have been judged on results throughout their teaching careers. So, their primary task hasn’t been to help students to write fluently, or accurately. In fact, while 26.4% of exams scored an A or A*, just 1.8% of English language exams were graded A*. Overall, the teachers have done their jobs, which has been to get their pupils to pass. And the overall pass rate for 2018 sits at 97.6%.

But when school leavers get to university, many will find themselves in a quandary. It’s likely that they’ll feel a pressure “to get their money’s worth”. Yet, they’ll also be faced with a barrage of new concepts and theories. And they may not have the writing skills to communicate them effectively. Ironically, this can hamper their chances in the job market.

A Royal Literary Fund report called “Writing Matters” labeled the writing skills of students “shocking” and “inadequate”. What’s more, an academic survey cited in this report found that 90% of lecturers said it was necessary to teach writing skills to students. Yet, university is structured so that the teaching of writing skills is not embedded into courses. It’s a veritable chicken-and-egg situation.

In any case, qualifications alone don’t sell themselves anymore. So, students need to see themselves as a package, not as a vessel for their exam results. They need to hone their soft skills – their ability to think well, write well, be emotionally intelligent and communicate with themselves and others.  Employers want to hire people who are creative, resourceful and resilient.

So, as students crack open the prosecco and celebrate their results – I say we supply them a break. Going to university is a massive life transition in itself, as is starting work for the first time. It’s easy to forget the days when you couldn’t boil an egg. And it’s easy to forget that it’s the system itself that isn’t teaching students the writing and communication skills they need to truly succeed in life and work.

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In her OP-Ed “Exams are at risk of extinction,” Chronicle opinion columnist and first-year Anna Garziera examines the current trends of American higher education shifting away from exams — think blue book midterms and the SAT and ACT you had to take for admissions — as the gold standards for success. She claims that exams provide valuable benchmarks for success and that we’re losing something precious by removing ourselves from exam culture. Furthermore, Garziera argues that the stressful nature of formal examinations actually builds resiliency, so that students can maximize their potential.

But do these exams actually help students retain information long-term? Are they helping learners learn?

First, a quick bit about me: I work as a learning experience designer for Duke Learning Innovation, a group that partners with faculty to teach and support quality, student-centered education at Duke. While I help design online courses, other members of my department consult with faculty on teaching and technology and conduct research on education and assessment.

Now to answer our questions.

Educational psychology suggests that high-stakes examinations — either in admissions tests like the SAT or the traditional midterm/finals format— work counter to the psychological processes of human memory. Dr. Sanjay Sarma, the head of open learning at MIT, wrote that high-stakes examinations are actually a detriment to the long-term retention of information. Students who cram — a process familiar to most university students — earned better results on test day. But compared to students who spaced their learning over an extended period — five hours over five days instead of five hours the night before an exam — they retain less information over time. Crammers forget much of what they studied as they move into the next semester or course.  Although professors aren’t counseling their students to study in this manner, the culture surrounding high-stakes examinations perpetuates this approach. When good marks on high-stakes exams are imperative to the ‘next step,’ such as the job or the graduate program of choice, students will cram. 

There’s a concept in the psychology of memory called cognitive load. There’s a gap between the information you already know and the information you are learning. Ideally, one could fit as much information as possible into this gap, à la an all-you-can-eat buffet. But you’re limited here by your cognitive load — the idea that there is a limited amount of information a human brain can take in at any given time. 

You can break the cognitive load of any learning experience — whether changing a tire or analyzing data from a particle accelerator — into three parts: the intrinsic, extraneous and germane loads. The intrinsic load — how innately difficult is the information? — can’t really be changed. However, the extraneous load — ways the instructional materials simplify or hinder direct instruction of the subject — and the germane load — the effort needed to process the information being learned — can be refined to maximize learners’ innate capabilities for long-term memory. Exams create enormous amounts of anxieties that overburden the extraneous and germane aspects of cognitive load. In the pressure cooker environment of studying for and taking a high-stakes exam, working memory becomes less efficient at converting information to long-term memory.

But Garziera also argues a more subtle point: The stress of high-stakes exam culture builds resiliency. She claims that, besides the fact that good grades on these exams are needed for good opportunities, the resiliency that comes from exam stress will lead to future success. The dad in “Calvin and Hobbes” is famous for saying “It builds character” about anything from a bad school day to biking in a blizzard. Although I always identified more with Calvin, I see the wisdom in Garziera’s argument. Stress leads to peak performance, and then the expertise achieved after the stressor can lead to continued success … but it all depends on what kind of stress we’re talking about. 

How do we know we’ve been successful if we haven’t gone through multiple barriers of entry, like high-stakes examinations, to get to our goal? I imagine students at Duke think about this frequently. Many of you probably picked Duke because of its selectivity, and what that implied about the quality of education. 

Garziera’s questions of success, what it means to be successful at Duke and after Duke, alongside her questions about what value, if any, we should place on high-stakes examinations, or even how to psychologically cope with our rapidly changing world, are all philosophical questions. I firmly believe that anyone who works in and for the Duke education system should become a philosopher — that is, a lover of wisdom and knowledge. As we embrace digital tools and platforms for education, we are going to see society shift its understanding of what universities do. 

I’m excited to make Duke a multifaceted place where the love of wisdom, academic exploration and intellectual development can coexist alongside knowledge-based skills training.

Maria Kunath is a learning experience designer for Duke Learning Innovation. She encourages all students who are interested in working with Duke Learning Innovation to email learninginnovation@duke.edu.