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Assessing Prior Knowledge

Students come to the classroom with a broad range of pre-existing knowledge, skills, beliefs, and attitudes, which influence how they attend, interpret and organize in-coming information.  How they process and integrate new information will, in turn, affect how they remember, think, apply, and create new knowledge.  Since new knowledge and skill is dependent on pre-existing knowledge and skill, knowing what students know and can do when they come into the classroom or before they begin a new topic of study, can help us craft instructional activities that build off of student strengths and acknowledge and address their weaknesses.

Once prior knowledge and skill is assessed, there is a range of potential responses, depending upon the type of course, the uniformity of results, and the availability and type of supplemental materials and alternatives.  For example, if a majority of the class possesses misconceptions or weak understanding of a concept that you viewed as a critical prerequisite, you may decide to include covering it in class, provide a supplementary session on it, or provide links to materials for students to engage with on their own. Similarly, if most students demonstrate proficiency in a skill you were planning to cover, you may decide to drop it and replace it with another skill that they have not yet developed, or adjust the level of complexity or time you spend on it.  Individual students lacking many of the prerequisite skills and knowledge could be encouraged to take prerequisite courses or be forewarned that they need to develop proficiency in areas on their own if they are to succeed in the course.  Thus assessing prior knowledge can enable both the instructor and the student to allocate their time and energies in ways that will be most productive.

Examples of Methods for Assessing Prior Knowledge and Skills

There are several different methods to assess pre-existing knowledge and skills in students.  Some are direct measures, such as tests, concept maps, portfolios, auditions, etc, and others are more indirect, such as self-reports, inventory of prior courses and experiences, etc.  Below are links to some methods that instructors at Carnegie Mellon and elsewhere have employed.

Concept Inventories

Concept inventories are multiple choice or short answer tests that target fundamental concepts within a domain. These tests are designed to uncover systematic misconceptions.

• Example 1: Mechanics This link contains sample items from the Mechanics Baseline Test (Hestenes & Wells, 1992).  The test is designed for students who have received some formal instruction on mechanics and is meant to assess conceptual understanding, not quantitative skills.
• Example 2: Statics This link contains sample items from a Statics Inventory developed by Paul Steif, Carnegie Mellon.

Concept maps

Concept map activities can reveal the underlying structure or organization of students knowledge of a concept or constellation of concepts. These are very helpful when the kinds of causal theories and relations among ideas are critical to them understanding the course materials.

• How to Create Concept Maps

Self-Assessment Probes

Self-assessment probes are indirect methods of assessment that ask students to reflect and comment on their level of knowledge and skill across a range of items.  These items can include knowledge and skills that are prerequisites for the course as well as items that will be addressed in the course.

• Student Self-Assessment Methods

Authentic Assessment

When considering how to assess student learning in a course, most instructors would agree that the ideal assessment would be one that not only assesses students’ learning; it also teaches students and improves their skills and understanding of course content. One fundamental aspect of such assessments is that they are authentic.

An authentic assignment is one that requires application of what students have learned to a new situation, and that demands judgment to determine what information and skills are relevant and how they should be used. Authentic assignments often focus on messy, complex real-world situations and their accompanying constraints; they can involve a real-world audience of stakeholders or “clients” as well. According to Grant Wiggins (1998), an assignment is authentic if it

• is realistic.
• requires judgment and innovation.
• asks the student to “do” the subject.
• replicates or simulates the contexts in which adults are “tested” in the workplace or in civic or personal life.
• assesses the student’s ability to efficiently and effectively use a repertoire of knowledge and skills to negotiate a complex task.
• allows appropriate opportunities to rehearse, practice, consult resources, and get feedback on and refine performances and products.

Authentic assessments can be contrasted with conventional test questions, which are often indirect measures of a student’s ability to apply the knowledge and skills gained in a course. Conventional tests have an important place in college courses, but cannot take the place of authentic assessments. The table below, drawn from Wiggins, illustrates the differences between typical tests and authentic assessments.

Authentic assessments have several advantages over conventional tests. They are likely to be more valid than conventional tests, particularly for learning outcomes that require higher-order thinking skills. Because they involve real-world tasks, they are also likely to be more interesting for students, and thus more motivating. And finally, they can provide more specific and usable information about what students have succeeded in learning as well as what they have not learned.

However, authentic assessments may require more time and effort on an instructor’s part to develop, and may be more difficult to grade. To address the difficulty of grading authentic assessments, it is often useful to create a grading rubric that specifies the traits that will be evaluated and the criteria by which they will be judged. (For more information, see the CITL resource on rubrics.)

Examples of Authentic Assessments

Who Is Doing This at IUB:

Professor Joshua Danish, in the School of Education, asks his students to apply the cognitive theories they have learned in class to help them interpret children’s behaviors in the classrooms they are observing, in this faculty spotlight.

Professor Alwiya Omar, Clinical Professor of Linguistics and director of IUB’s Swahili Flagship Program, has her students learn Swahili by engaging in an activity with strong roots in African languages and cultures: storytelling. She describes her approach in this faculty spotlight.

References

Wiggins, Grant. (1998). Ensuring authentic performance. Chapter 2 in Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 21 – 42.

For More Help or Information

To get help in designing authentic assessments, contact CITL to meet with a consultant.