Shelley Livingston

Diagnostic Assessment s

While diagnostic assessments precede and impact formative assessments, I have mixed feelings about them and whether I should know the results of the diagnostic assessments.

I facilitate primarily upper level and graduate courses in accounting - a subject that clearly builds on itself. From that perspective, it is imperative that the foundations be sufficiently understood and applied or the learner will not be successful in my classes.

Given this as my diagnostic assessment, I rely on the successful completion of certain prerequisites, depending on the basics underlying my class. I do not find it necessary to know the exact grade, but I do think that without at least an average score on appropriate prerequisite courses that the learner should not be enrolled in subsequent classes.

However, I also think that if I possess specific knowledge that it opens the door for a degree of negative bias to overcome, pigeon-holing and reducing the expectations of a student with less than stellar scores, if you will. For example, one recent learner enrolled simultaneously in both my first and second advanced accounting courses after divulging that she had already failed the first class once. With that knowledge from the outset, I had doubts about her ability to complete these two classes successfully. I made a concerted effort to remain objective and positive, but she has now failed the first class twice and the second class once.

Does anyone have thoughts on how to address the issue? Is it just me or have others developed a means to handle it? Is it just the subject matter of the course being taught that affects the issue?