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Knowing our students: a prior learning assessment.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Students in higher education are more diverse than ever before in history. Understanding students' backgrounds, experiences and attitudes early can help faculty better serve this diverse population. This is a case study that outlines the development and implementation of a web-based prior learning assessment. It also describes how faculty and administrators have used the results.

Introduction

The demographics of college students are changing. In the last forty years, a more diverse student body has emerged. Nearly 75% of high school graduates now attend some higher education institution within two years after the diploma (Education TrustWest, 2002). Older students make up one-third of the college population (Schneider & Stevenson, 1999) and 28% of the college population are ethnic minority students (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2002). Along with the changing demographics comes differing needs, skills, and desires (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2002). The changing demographics and needs of students demand that faculty understand who their students are so that they can better teach them.

The importance of knowing one's students is supported by research on learning.

This research concludes that a student's prior knowledge and experience impacts their future learning (e.g. Bransford, et. al., 2000). With an understanding of what a student brings to the enterprise of learning, teachers can better assure that what they teach will be learned. Yet, teachers rarely ask what their students bring to the class. If they do ask, the questions usually pertain to students' mastery of an academic skill or content area and are gathered through the use of placement tests or a course pre-test (Angelo and Cross, 1993). Information on students' prior knowledge of a content area may not be enough in helping us understand our students. Research on student learning also indicates that demographic factors, such as students' commute time and hours worked, and attitudinal factors, such as one's reason for attending college, impact students' ability to be successful as much, if not more, than academic skill or knowledge (Astin, 1992). Knowing these things may help faculty better address their students' needs. In addition, research has shown that student learning is enhanced when students feel they are part of a learning community (Shapiro and Levine, 1999). Knowing who their peers are, what their experiences have been and what they believe can help them identify their shared experiences and differences and promote a better classroom environment and a better sense of self (Lenning and Ebbers, 2000). While an institution may collect demographic and attitudinal data on the institutional level through its institutional research department, this data may not easily accessed or presented in ways that can be easily used by teachers or students. In addition, such data tends...

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