At the SAM International Business Conference in Las Vegas this week, faculty members from the Business Department of Texas A&M University - Corpus Christie described the successful launch of a project aimed to support students in taking a major field test (MFT) by publisher ETS. The paper presented at conference will be published in proceedings in the coming months.
Briefly, the faculty devised several strategies for the weeks leading up to the MFT administration, alert to "the small things" that can make a difference in performance on a standardized test. Students had access to online quizzes on sample questions that they could take as many times as they liked. Students were prepared for the formality of a secure test through a letter explaining procedures and even how to locate a seat in the testing room. Faculty included an anonymous "customer satisfaction" survey after the administration in order to learn how students experienced the testing.
The A&M faculty team refer to their project as professionalism in test administration. They devised means to evaluate virtually all of their strategies, including how students used the alloted scratch paper that the Department systematized in distributing and collecting. Not the least of their evaluation is looking for correlations between strategies and test results. They are satisfied that improvement can be seen already.
(Reference to proceedings will be provided here after the publication date.)
© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.
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