Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education awarded $1.9 million to Albany-based Excelsior College through its First in the World Program, financing two years of development and piloting of a new, open-source diagnostic assessment of college-level skills.
- Once finalized, the assessment will provide an alternative to placement exams, giving schools information to target resources and student services based on the results of the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills, or DAACS.
- Beyond academic skills, the assessment will measure nonacademic skills like self-regulation, grit, and test anxiety in order to give students and colleges more information about abilities and needs.
Dive Insight:
Placement exams have been criticized for pushing too many students into remedial courses that do not bear college credit. This increases the cost for a student’s education and the time it takes to get a degree. At community colleges this is a special concern because of the sheer number of students who test into remedial coursework. Excelsior plans to link its DAACS results into a predictive analytics system, providing a model for schools that incorporate the assessment once it is available nationwide.