For those that say CLEP is "cheating"

[irnbru]

There are a few ideas which have been touched upon and peoples' comments are interesting.

First, and probably the most relevant, is assessment. How does the course assess if learning has occurred? An acid test for comparison between CLEP/DSST and a traditional school might be asking if a traditional school would be happy using the CLEP format. In most subjects, this is probably not going to happen; the question is why?

Historically, waving a very broad brush, we can see humanities and social sciences leaning heavily toward written work and the use of references. Meanwhile, hard sciences would likely tend to present problems requiring multi-stage solutions and practical work. Business subjects might sit somewhere between both these aproaches, additionally requiring project-style work.

Meanwhile, whatever the syllabus is, certain outcomes must be achieved. Traditional assessment usually breaks down this evaluation of achievement across weighted quizzes, mid-terms, projects and finals. A CLEP is a one-shot deal. The former enables a progressive testing of candidates, with a capacity for reflection and adjustment while the latter is all-or-nothing. If an individual were presented with the option of sitting/submitting all tests and projects at once, would their results still be considered a true reflection of their achievement of the learning outcomes and a fair assessment? I don't see why not, if anything, they are probably disadvantaged.

Moving onto a common sore point brings up the key topic of the multiple-choice format of CLEPs compared to other forms of evaluation. Is the multiple-choice test format easier than the 'long solution' format? On the one hand a candidate in multiple-choice tests is always going to score some points. On the other, they will never receive credit for partial solutions or showing working. Multiple-choice tests might enable a candidate to eliminate known incorrect answers but they will not receive credit for writing style, structure and appropriate citations/references, i.e. they test knowledge and understanding of the subject, rather than more general academic skills. Lastly, the test environment is relatively clinical and timed; this means a candidate does not have the luxury of building up a piece of work over a period of time with access to reference material and mentoring.

Consequently what would this discussion look like if schools permitted students to directly access their assessment procedures without a requirement for participating in their teaching? I believe students would certainly direct their efforts and time onto studying explicitly to pass exams and papers - it's what most students do, anyway. Passing is a primary objective for students with a good result a very-close secondary consideration. CLEP results are roughly graded on a t-distribution with an approximate sd of 10, which provides a very good indication of how well an individual has performed.

Finally, a CLEP is not a degree. The reason this obvious point is stated explicitly is that individual subjects cummulate toward the overall objective - assessing whether a candidate has met the outcomes sufficient and necessary to be awarded a degree. This is precisely why Charter Oak and Excelsior have introduced their Capstone courses. These courses bring together a student's total knowledge and understanding and require them to produce work in a variety of modes; written papers, discussion groups, oral presentations and projects. So, while a student can choose whether to achieve educational assessment outcomes (credit!) over the entire course of their degree through direct tests or more traditional courses, they will have participated in and demonstrated proficiency of the spectrum of assessment formats. In the traditional Capstone course format, I'd say the CLEP student has the advantage of both their accumulated knowledge and understanding and their (arguably superior) capacity for locating and extracting relevant and useful content to be applied. This last point is worth reflecting on as a measure of general study skills.

Hmm, ended up writing more than anticipated but I hope it gets the point across!