McDojang Testing Procedures

[Kicker Chick]

I fear that my dojang's standards are starting down the slippery slope . . .

I've studied TKD at the same school for 5 years, and achieved my black belt just over 1 year ago.

Through the years, testing days meant that all students who were testing for a particular belt level get up before the assembled students, families and instructors, and demonstrate the techniques as called out by the master.

This year, the master has instituted a new testing procedure: The dojang is divided into stations that are manned by 2 black belts each. Each station is a different requirement, e.g. forms, kicking, sparring, etc. The stations do not need to be visited in any particular order, provided that the student show on his testing sheet that he has visited each one. The black belts at each station rank the student 1-5 on his test sheet for that particular requirement. Anything below a 3 requires a re-test.

I really don't care for this type of testing. Perhaps I'm too much of a traditionalist and prefer the large scale testing before the whole school.

Do any of your schools test like this? What do you think?

[sk0t]

Well, I dont think that your school is going into the McDojang category yet...because there are still requirements to be met...

At some McDojangs there are times when kids will get their belt no matter what, and a 'retest' is unheard of.

But give it a shot, it might prove to be better than you thought.

It makes it easier to have other people watch as well, cause the main instructor cant argueably watch everyone at the same time.

[orion82698]

Honestly.... I would let it simmer for a little bit. See how a few graddings go. It sounds nothing like the McJoke I'm going to.

[taekwondomom]

Hi Kicker Chick--

I wonder why your dojang decided to make this move. Perhaps there were so many people going through tests that it was difficult for one instructor to grade all of them.

I am with you: I love those whole-dojang tests! There's something exciting and momentous about them that won't be matched in a buffet-style test.

Still, it's possible for this set-up to work. As an instructor who does grading in another area (I teach college-level writing), I have seen group grading work well, but only when the graders are first given a chance to come to an agreement about what makes a "1" grade--or a "3" or "4" more importantly. At my college always have a "norming session" before we assess the writing of incoming students (500 students--way too many for just the writing instructors to grade, so we enlist the help of all faculty). We look at some papers together and decide what range they'd fall in and discuss it before we start grading.

I think that's what I'd want to know: that all instructors are working from the same (or similar) assumptions. I bet there's some way TKD instructors could do that.

Good luck with this. It really doesn't sound as exciting as the old way but maybe you can make it work.