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ABSTRACT
Based on the theoretical framework of learner-centered assessment, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of take-home assessments in increasing retention of course material, decreasing test anxiety and improving test scores. Two sections of an Experimental Psychology course were randomly assigned different chapters to be assessed by either in-class or take-home exams. Composite scores for the items on a surprise final comprised of questions from both the take-home and in-class exams were computed to evaluate the retention rate for course material. Items on the unexpected final exam that were from chapters on which the students had been assessed with take-home exams were answered correctly at a higher rate than for items from chapters assessed in-class. The results of a student survey indicated that when tests were administered as take-home assessments, students believed they learned more and studied harder.
Keywords: learner-centered assessment, take home, in class, deep learning strategies, retention.
INTRODUCTION
Before becoming a psychology professor, my career centered on research design and program evaluation of educational interventions implemented by the Philadelphia School District, various for-profit tutoring companies, and international aid organizations funded by USAID. Therefore, when I began my first semester, I was inclined to think about my goals as an instructor, and the purposes of my assessments.
However, the pressures of being a new professor in the first semester made it difficult to do anything other than prepare my lectures, and use textbook test banks to create in-class examinations. After all, in-class exams, using a mixture of multiple choice and short answer questions, are what most of the college syllabi included when I was in school.
It was not long before I began to see some of the flaws in using these exams as my main method of assessment. First, many of my students reported high levels of test anxiety. As a professor at an historically black college/university (HBCU), it registered that this informal feedback was consistent with research on the high levels of test anxiety reported among college-aged African-American samples, perhaps as a function of stereotype threat (see Steele, Spencer, and Aronson, 2002 for a review of this literature). Since high levels of test anxiety have been shown to impede cognition and test performance (see Aronson and...