College Learning for the New Global Century - 13

Employers Seek New Forms of Assessment and Reject MultipleChoice Tests

• Very few employers surveyed find college transcripts useful in evaluat• Employers seek assessments that demonstrate graduates’ ability to

ing whether candidates have achieved the most important outcomes of college. Fewer than three in 10 employers find college transcripts very (13 percent) or fairly (16 percent) useful. apply their learning to real-world challenges. More than two-thirds of employers believe that a faculty supervisor’s assessment of a students’ internship or community-based project would be very or fairly useful to them in evaluating college graduates’ potential for success. More than half of employers also would find it useful to see individual scores on essay tests of problem-solving, writing, and analytical-thinking. resources in qualitative assessment methods that demonstrate students’ advanced ability to integrate and apply their learning, (see figure 2).

• Employers also would recommend to colleges that they invest scarce
practices that are based on a small sample of students. They are much more interested in individual readiness.

• Employers do not recommend that college leaders invest in assessment

FIGuRE 2
EMPLoyERS ADvISE oN WHERE To FoCuS ASSESSMENT RESouRCES

one/Two Practices to Which Colleges Should Devote Resources

50% 35% 32% 31%

Internships/Community Based Learning Faculty evaluated internships or community based learning experiences Individual Student Essay Tests Essay tests that measure students’ problem-solving, writing, and analytical-thinking skills Electronic portfolios Electronic portfolios of students’ work, including examples of accomplishments in key skill areas and faculty assessments of them Senior Projects Faculty-evaluated comprehensive senior projects demonstrating students’ depth of skill in major & advanced problem-solving, writing, and analytic-reasoning skills

8%
5%

Institutionally Scored Essay Tests Tests that show how a college compares to others in advancing students’ critical-thinking skills

Multiple-Choice Tests Multiple-choice test of general content knowledge

Source: How Should Colleges Assess and Improve Student Learning? AAC&U/Peter D. Hart Research, 2008.

Liberal Education & America’s Promise | AAC&U 13
College Learning for the New Global Century

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of College Learning for the New Global Century
