KNOWLEDGE SURVEYS AS AN ALTERNATIVE OR ADDITIONAL ASSESSMENT TOOL IN THE CLASSROOM

Tom Hickson, Department of Geology

Let’s cut to the chase…How would you interpret these data?

N = ~60 students

Not confident

Confident

Roadmap…

Motivation What is a Knowledge Survey? Applications of Knowledge Surveys Implementation Here at UST

MotivationIdeally, our course organization, content, and learning goals all work together to maximize student learning

Motivation

I was looking to forge a more direct link between my course goals, organization and content

I wanted to know what my students thought they knew

I wanted a low stakes pre- and post-course assessment

I wanted something that was data-rich and fairly detailed

I wanted something easy to administer and analyze

What is a KS?

What is a KS?

Questions that cover course content. Organized by main content areas. May be coded to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Students do not answer the questions. Students rank their ability to answer the

questions on a Likert-type scale. For my courses, between 70 and 150

questions.

What is a KS?

What is a KS?

What is a KS?

What is a KS?

Source: Nuhfer & Knipp, 2003

Applications

Course planning

Assessing student progress in a course

Assessing student progress in a course

Connecting material to Bloom’s taxonomy

GEOL 320:Sedimentology &Stratigraphy

Connecting material to Bloom’s taxonomy

Assessing metacognition

Assessing metacognition

Assessing how well I addressed content

Assessing how well content is addressed or even duplicated

Source: Knufer and Knipp, 2003

As a departmental assessment tool

One of three assessment tools we use 188 questions that cover our entire curriculum Administered to all graduating students on our

departmental “assessment day” in the spring Called the “Senior Exit and Knowledge

Survey” (yes, the “SEKS”)

As a departmental assessment tool

As a departmental assessment tool

Other benefits

Students see entire course content: no mysteries

Used as a study guide, students learn to self-assess

At completion of course, provides students with a detailed snapshot of what they have learned

Implementation

Excel Blackboard A template for processing data

Implementation: Excel

Implementation: Excel

Implementation: Blackboard

Implementation: Blackboard

Give the KS as a TEST, not a survey In Blackboard, surveys are anonymous. We don’t

want that Take class time to do it Can give it as a first homework as well. Download the data from Blackboard back to

Excel to analyze

Implementation: Blackboard

Implementation: Blackboard

Resources

Resources

Nuhfer, E. and Knipp, D., 2003, The Knowledge Survey: A Tool for All Reasons, To Improve the Academy, v. 21, pp. 59 78.

Science Education Resource Center (SERC)

Perkins, D. and Wirth, K., Knowledge Surveys: Applications and Results