Tom Hickson, Department of Geology
How would you interpret these data?
Confident
Not confident
N = ~60 students
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Motivation
What is a Knowledge Survey?
Applications of Knowledge Surveys
Implementation Here at UST
Ideally, our course organization, content, and learning goals all work
together to maximize student learning
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I was looking to forge a more direct link between
my course goals, organization and content
I wanted to know what my students thought they
knew
I wanted a low stakes pre- and post-course
assessment
I wanted something that was data-rich and fairly
detailed
I wanted something easy to administer and
analyze
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Questions that cover course content.
Organized by main content areas.
May be coded to Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Students do not answer the questions.
Students rank their ability to answer the
questions on a Likert-type scale.
For my courses, between 70 and 150
questions.
Source: Nuhfer & Knipp, 2003
GEOL 320:
Sedimentology &
Stratigraphy
Source: Knufer and Knipp, 2003
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One of three assessment tools we use
188 questions that cover our entire curriculum
Administered to all graduating students on our
departmental “assessment day” in the spring
Called the “Senior Exit and Knowledge
Survey” (yes, the “SEKS”)
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Students see entire course content: no
mysteries
Used as a study guide, students learn to selfassess
At completion of course, provides students
with a detailed snapshot of what they have
learned
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Excel
Blackboard
A template for processing data
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Give the KS as a TEST, not a survey
 In Blackboard, surveys are anonymous. We don’t
want that
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Take class time to do it
Can give it as a first homework as well.
Download the data from Blackboard back to
Excel to analyze
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Nuhfer, E. and Knipp, D., 2003, The
Knowledge Survey: A Tool for All Reasons,
To Improve the Academy, v. 21, pp. 59 78.
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Science Education Resource Center (SERC)
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Perkins, D. and Wirth, K., Knowledge
Surveys: Applications and Results