Local Versus Standardized Content Assessment: Some Management Implications, or Why Bother?

In a quest to improve student learning and simultaneously to satisfy accrediting agencies, colleges make decisions about how to assess knowledge or content as students graduate. The authors address the strengths and weaknesses of locally developed exams as contrasted to national, standardized tools, and describe a process for developing local capstone exams. The authors suggest that although locally developed exams take considerable time and effort, they also have numerous advantages, not the least of which are increased collegiality and improved communication about teaching among faculty. Although creating the exams is a lot of bother, they argue that the value of the process exceeds the cost.