Self-Assessments: Beneficial to Both Students and Schools

Abstract

Most students or prospective students have the abil ity to assess their own skill or knowledge level if they are given the proper tools and motivation. At Wau kesha County Technical Institute (WCTI), Pewaukee, Wisconsin, 1 helped develop self-diagnostic tools which were beneficial to both students and school. Self-assessments are voluntary, take-home, self scoring, self-evaluating diagnostic tests in basic skills. These voluntary tests tell new or prospective students if they are academically prepared to begin the course work of specific vocational or associate degree programs at the post-secondary level, or if they need remediation in any of the basic skills. Furthermore, the assessments can indicate the kind of remediation necessary for the stu dent. Without entrance testing, placement is usually based upon the student's high school record. That record, however, is not always up-to-date or reliable since the average age of students in post-secondary schools is now approaching thirty. (At WCTI only 7 percent of the students have just completed high school.) Yet, many schools will not update the student records by adopting mandatory placement testing because they believe that the students who could benefit most from a placement test would fear it so much that they would never even come to school. The open-door policy at many institutions creates a large need for developmental and remedial programs. Yet, if there is no placement testing, the students who need remedial help often are neither identified nor plac