Alignment of Admission: An Exploration and Analysis of the Links Between Learning Objectives and Selective Admission to Programmes in Higher Education

Abstract

The overarching question in this dissertation is How are learning objectives and selective admission aligned? The results show that alignment matters. There are significant differences in the predictive validity of instruments depending on which grades are used as dependent variable. This indicates the importance of the link between selective admission instrument and results within the programme. This also shows the common-sense interpretation of alignment that the best predictors are instruments that most resemble the tests within the programme. High school grades predict performance on the level of knowledge and understanding best, because assessment of skills on these levels is important in the grading at the high school level. That means that a heavy reliance on high school grades is problematic for most academic programmes. Although high school GPA is a strong predictor of university first-year GPA, most programmes will have learning objectives that go beyond these lower order cognitive skills (LOCS). A heavy reliance on LOCS in the admission procedure, as currently is common practice, might mean that some of the candidates who are rejected are stronger in skills that are more important in the later years of a programme (e.g. writing a thesis that presents new and creative ideas). The answer to how alignment between selective admission instruments and higher order cognitive skills (HOCS) can be done follows the same simple logic that was found for LOCS. High school grades represent the ability to perform LOCS, although requiring less expertise than is required at the university level (where knowledge and understanding is generally more demanding). For HOCS, the aim should be to find equivalents. HOCS, in the sense of skills higher in the taxonomy developed by Anderson and Krathwohl (2001), can also be assessed in a way that requires less expertise in these skills. For a programme whose aim is to ensure that students achieve HOCS, that is a logical way forward. That is naturally in addition to continuing to look at previous performance in LOCS, which are also likely to play a role in programmes. Alignment means that what selective admission looks like becomes contingent on the programme learning objectives, the teaching within the programme and the testing within the programme. The idea that selective admission should be specific to a programme and be part of how a programme distinguishes itself from other programmes, is likely to lead to public policy leaving a lot to the programmes in the area of instrument choice and content. This perspective in the Netherlands has led to regulation that is almost entirely focused on procedures, rather than on selective admission criteria. However, an analysis of how programmes at top universities around the world currently select students raises questions about the choices that programmes make in developing their systems for selective admission. Learning objectives are rarely aligned with the instruments that programmes use to select students. These results show that alignment has not been an important factor in the decision making about selective admission at the programme level.