We use gain scores because we don't have a normed test. You "could" if your
institution is really committed to assessment have them pay for students to
take the ACAT or MFT from ETS at the welcome to the major course point in time
and again at graduation time. Otherwise, any homegrown test can use normalized
gain scores.
This logic comes to me from our friend Richard Hake who sometimes posts to
tips. It is MUCH more intuitive and MUCH simpler to calculate than regression
residuals, which you can also use.
Here is what you do: You calculate for each person their percent correct. Then
calculate this score:
(posttest score - pretest score)/(100-pretest score)
What this does is take into account each person's starting point--how much they
could possibly improved from where they started.
So take two people:
Pretest Postest Net Change Gain
Person A 20 40 20 (40-20)/(100-20)=.25
Person B 60 80 20 (80-60)/(100-60)=.50
Person B improved 50% of what s/he could have improved by; Person A only
improved 25% of what s/he could have improved by to reach your criterion.
Now that you have equated your people for their potential gain you can feel
safer in making some conclusions about your sample in general in terms of their
improvement.
Hope this helps.
Now, if you could please share your syllabus for the majors course I would be
most grateful. I am teaching it for the first time, here, this coming fall.
Annette
Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
[email protected]
---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:48:15 -0800
>From: Marte Fallshore <[email protected]>
>Subject: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
>To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
><[email protected]>
>
>
>
> Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back.
> Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My
> school, like all the others, is obsessed with
> assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e.
> cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone
> out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych
> graduates? My chair is wanting to start something
> like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to
> the major class when they declare. We want to give
> them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest
> during their senior assessment class. What do they
> know b/4 the major and what do they know after?
> Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe
> normed) we could use? Thanks,
>
> Marte
>
>
> ************************************************
> Marte Fallshore
> Department of Psychology
> Central Washington Univ.
> 400 E University Way
> Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575
>
> 509/963-3670
> 509/963-2307 (fax)
>
> No one knows what's next, but everybody does it.
> ~George Carlin
>
> When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
> When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a
> communist.
> ~Dom Heider Camara
>
> I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon)
> ************************************************
>
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