A Comparison of Experimental Designs for Assessment and Research in Higher Education

Abstract

Assessment continues to rise in importance along with the scholarship of
teaching and learning. Educators must, therefore, choose among a range of
experimental designs to make these quantitative measurements of student
learning. We compared three different study designs for an assessment of
embedding sustainability across the campus: comparing results to a pre-determined                                                                                                             goal, pre-semester vs. post-semester survey scores without a control
group, and pre-semester vs. post-semester survey scores with a control group.
Patterns in student success varied among the study designs, with pre-post with a
control being the most reliable results, but comparing student knowledge and
appreciation of sustainability to the pre-set goals was also valuable. Ours are the
first results we are aware of to make such a direct comparison, and should be
valuable to teachers and researchers as they seek to design assessment as well as
teaching and learning research projects. We recommend that educators employ
both the pre-post with control design along with comparing learning to a goal
whenever possible when conducting assessment or education research.