Development and Validation of an Open Ended Assessment - Creative Exercises

Presented at SoTL Virtual Expo

Nationally standardized multiple choice exams are used heavily in assessment of many fields. While these exams can provide valuable information about student learning, many educators believe that multiple choice exams are too limiting. Faculty at Georgia Southern are part of a research group that received NSF funding to develop and validate an open-ended assessment called the Creative Exercise (CE). The CEs measure student learning in an open ended fashion while still being incorporated within a conventional exam. The CE consists of a prompt that leads students to write down a limited number of distinct, correct and relevant facts about the prompt. CEs provide students the opportunity to demonstrate the breath of their knowledge and to creatively connect curricular concepts through open-ended, but structured questions. Published data indicating effectiveness and validity of CEs in the area of chemistry will be shown.