Q: I am writing today with a question about pre/post testing and learning outcomes, in particular for one of our non-credit courses at Temple University Fort Washington. A couple of weeks ago, we ran a course in Writing for Business. This course is part of the Professional Communication Certificate Program. At the end of the day, the instructor mentioned that two of the students in her class didn’t seem to grasp the content. Plus, one of the students had also taken her Grammar class, and still didn’t seem to know a noun from a verb. The instructor knows that the course is part of the certificate program, and our requirements for the certificate program is just attendance. As long as they attend all of the required courses in the certificate program, they receive a certificate of completion. So, even though the student wasn’t able to grasp the concepts, he will still get the certificate. Can the instructor include any kind of pre/post test in the course? And, what happens if the student doesn’t pass the post test? We always say that with non-credit courses there are no tests/grades, yet how can we confirm that the student has rightly earned the certificate? Any thoughts you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
A: There are different kinds of certificates. A certificate of attendance does not purport to suggest any level of competence. If your criterion for receiving the certificate is attendance only, then there should be no tests. However, just because a course is non-credit, does not mean that you cannot set standards and require that people meet them in order to receive a certificate. Generally, certificates of attendance do not require tests, because all they do is say that someone attended an educational program. They do not say that the person has mastered any content. That is one of the big issues with equating seat-time with achievement. LERN has created the ILU as a way to measure learning outcomes in non-credit programs. The ILU requires that a student demonstrate 80% mastery of content in order to receive an ILU (International Learning Unit). The ILU not only indicates that a person participated in a learning program but achieved a required level of mastery. Let us know if you would like more information about the ILU.
Questions
Certification Program Criteria
May 7, 2019 4:13:25 AM
by
Jordan Kivley
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