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Post entry testing

I am interested in views and experiences related to post entry testing for academic literacy. UWS is considering this path. I know some institutions use diagnostic testing for particular disciplines or cohorts of students and I would be interested in hearing about issues arising from those experiences. Other issues might relate to the logistics of testing, generic commercial testing versus 'in house' subject specific testing, the logistics and resource implications of providing support to students who so not perform well on the tests, etc, the complexity of testing for academic literacy, as opposed to Maths, for example.

Janice Catterall

‹ Team teaching Reflective practice ›

diagnostic assessment at UTS

Submitted by abarthel on Tue, 10/30/2007 - 10:59.

dear Janice,

thanks for using the forum

at UTS we've been using diagnostic academic literacy assessments for quite a while with 1st year Engineering and IT students. We try to integrate it into the 1st week of a compulsory/core subject. All our assessments are contextualiused within disciplines and are developed/marked in-house. The system's workinfg well and UTS may be extending it to all faculties???

We recently also tried to conduct similar assessments on-line. Liz.craven@uts.edu.au can tell you more and she is presenting a poster session at the forthcoming UTS T&L forum, see: http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/learnteach/fo ... raven.html
cheers
alex

Post entry testing

Submitted by Jo on Wed, 10/31/2007 - 12:15.

Hi Alex

I'm interested in your diagnostic academic literacy assessments. Can I pick your brains about them?

Regards
Jo

Post entry testing

Submitted by Peter Hanley on Wed, 01/02/2008 - 11:58.

Hello Janice

A belated reply to your earlier post. At JCU the School of Business have operated post entry testing for several years.

The first two hour session in one of the core business courses is taken up with 3 tests - academic literacy, numeracy and IT. The academic literacy test involves writng three or four paragraphs on a popular topic - eg use of computers in Business. These are then graded into three categories -
1. Satisfactory
2. Encouraged to attend one day writing session with LAs
3. Strongly encouraged to enrol in undergraduate subject on academic writing.

This has worked well and is now a permanent part of the Business program.

regards

Peter