Historical Assessment Tools Historical Assessment Tools
Learning assessment tools have evolved over time, just as learning objectives and teaching techniques have. For many years, learning objectives were focused on content knowledge and factual information. Lecturing was the teaching strategy most often employed in collegiate classes, with written exams used for assessment. Test items took on various forms such as true/false, multiple choice, short essay and sentence completion; but the assessment was structured as an exam. The type of content being conveyed contributed to the high use of exams as an assessment tool with a large portion of content related to facts and understanding of discipline knowledge. Assessments required “regurgitation” of the facts and, for the most part, only a basic application of knowledge. The one-way transmission of knowledge through lectures, and assessment by exams, required little critical thought or analysis, synthesis or evaluation of the content (Bloom et al., 1956). What was required was memorization of the content to pass the exams (Wiggins and McTighe 1998; Prince 2004). In the 1960s, educators began to recognize that new knowledge was developing at an increasing rate and the charge to instructors to be the conveyors of knowledge was impractical and ultimately unrealistic. Professional educators began to examine other types of content that needed to be taught in order to enable students to effectively deal with the expanding knowledge base. In the field of education, the teaching of content that involved skills, processes and attitudes began to take on new importance. Students needed a set of processes and skills to handle the barrage of information (Major and Palmer 2001). Active-learning experiences that would allow students opportunities to learn through participation and practice using skills and processes took on a more prominent role in classroom instruction. Teaching skills by employing them rather than by simply listening to a lecture about them was a more effective teaching method. For example, lecturing about how to problem solve in a collaborative setting is not as efficient as engaging in collaborative problem solving as active learning in the classroom. With the shift in learning objectives that were more focused on the development of skills and processes, new assessment techniques were required to be developed to determine if these skills were being taught effectively through new active- learning techniques. However, these newer assessment methods, as well as scholarly reviews of them, have been slow to develop.