ERIC Number: EJ1268689
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Sep
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2379-6154
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Reconciling Assessment Quality Standards and "Double Assessment" in Competency-Based Higher Education
Tkatchov, Mary; Hugus, Erin; Barnes, Richard
Journal of Competency-Based Education, v5 n3 e01215 Sep 2020
Redundancy in assessment adds unnecessary time to degree completion, which also increases the cost of tuition. In addition, assessment practices that are overly burdensome for faculty can also place too much of a financial burden on an institution and, ultimately, the students. Therefore, competency-based education (CBE) institutions are wise to avoid redundancy in assessment whenever possible and to prioritize the scalability of assessments. However, there must be a balance in competency-based higher education between minimizing the cost of education and maintaining high-quality assessment practices that give employers confidence in the legitimacy of competency-based credentials. When literature resoundingly supports the use of multiple forms of assessment as a best practice, restricting assessment practices in CBE to only one form of assessment based on an ill-defined and unsubstantiated "double assessment" rule can have the opposite of its intended effect. It can reduce, not enhance, the quality of competency assessments and the validity of inferences about student learning derived from those assessments. This article discusses the problem with "double assessment" in CBE and focuses on two main forms of assessment, selected-response assessment and performance assessment, to compare their benefits and weaknesses. The article also provides an example of a complementary assessment strategy using multiple forms of assessment.
Descriptors: Competency Based Education, Higher Education, Standards, Student Evaluation, Achievement Tests, College Students, Performance Based Assessment, Test Format, Evaluation Problems
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www-wiley-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A