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A Proficiency Exam Protocol in a Supportive Learning Environment Introduction A procedure utilizing proficiency exams, referred to as The Proficiency Exam Protocol, was developed by this author and was found to be a powerful way to help students learn material, build their skill sets, and develop cognitively. The Proficiency Exam Protocol is more effective and less stressful to students than homework, exams, and pop quizzes. The Proficiency Exam Protocol leads to enhanced student cognitive development and guarantees that students have a mastery of basic material. Not only does The Proficiency Exam Protocol help students learn, it also provides an assessment method which assures satisfaction of specific ABET outcomes.

The Proficiency Exam Protocol The format of The Proficiency Exam Protocol is as follows: • A topic is presented to students using traditional teaching techniques: lecturing, active learning, cooperative learning, homework, etc. (As an example, one topic covered in Structures I is bar forces in a truss using the Method of Joints.) • After the coverage of this topic, students are given a single exam question on the topic where they can demonstrate proficiency. (In the Structures I example, the exam question would require that students solve for all the bar forces in a simple truss as shown in Figure 1.) • Although proficiency can be defined in numerous ways, the method works well when, to demonstrate proficiency, a student’s solution must be 100% correct. This definition of proficiency forces students to thoroughly understand material, eliminates student attempts to negotiate for a better part-score, and makes it much easier to grade the proficiency exams. • Unless calculations are done to engineering graphics standards and are organized so that they can be readily checked, the exam is not even graded. Thus, the proficiency exams become not only a way of ensuring that students have mastered material but are also used to help develop students’ organizational and communication skills. • In order to relieve test anxiety and the stress caused by the demanding grading scheme, students are allowed to take, without penalty, as many proficiency exams on a topic as are required to demonstrate proficiency. • The initial administration of a proficiency exam occurs in the classroom. • Subsequent administrations require students to come to the professor’s office to take a re-exam or arrangements are made for a group of students to take a re- exam after class. Therefore, remake proficiency exams do not impinge on class time. • After 2 or 3 failed attempts to demonstrate proficiency, a student is not allowed to take further exams until he/she comes to the professor’s office so that the professor has the opportunity to work one-on-one with the student on his/her comprehension of material.

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Carpenter, W. (2007, June), Proficiency Exams In A Supportive Learning Environment Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--1797