At UNO we eagerly pursued such testing as part of our AACSB continuous
improvement effort.

It was a total bust even though some of our most enthusiastic and dedicated
folks worked on it.

The need for statistically relevant sample sizes coupled with the realities
of time doom the testing to the most superficial levels.

If you believe a one hour exam is approximately 50 multiple choice
questions, then how many questions per subject area can you ask when
addressing the AACSB list of required topics?  Can one --accurately--
measure entry and exit knowledge with four questions per exam to cover all
of law?   (This, of course, ignores whether a multiple choice test can
detect the presence of college level learning, but that is another issue.)

My advice?  Encourage such testing if a full 8 hour day is devoted to
testing each student at entry and at exit.  (Hardly an excessive commitment
of time and resources for a supposedly 4 year endeavor.  Or, if you prefer,
less than 0.3% of the clock hours of face-time to earn a college degree
{i.e., (two eight hour days of testing) / (125 credit hours times 45 class
meetings of 50 minutes)  =  ([2 * 8] / [125 * 45 * {50 / 60}])  =  ([16] /
[4687.5])  =  0.00341}.)  Otherwise, do not resist such entry/exit testing
efforts in any way, other than --avoiding the expenditure of your personal
time-- in the creation of the test, the administration of the test, or the
interpretation of the test results.

Michael

Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
Finance, Banking, & Law Department
College of Business Administration
Roskens Hall 502
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha  NE  68182
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