ASSESSMENT-CENTERS FOR COURSE-EVALUATIONS - A DEMONSTRATION

A quasi-experimental design, employing assessment center (AC) pre- and post-measures of skills and knowledge, as well as traditional pencil- and-paper measures, was used to assess the amount of learning in two fundamentally different management classes. One class, the control gro up, focused on the theories and models of organizational behavior that emphasized top-down learning associated with committing material to m emory and recalling memorized concepts. In the second class, the exper imental group, students learned a variety of hands-on management skill s. Then they used bottom-up cognitive processes to identify critical c ues in the task environment in order to diagnose problems requiring th e application of specific skills. As expected, the theory class perfor med better on traditional tests requiring the recall of data from memo ry. The skills class performed better on assessment center exercises r equiring the recognition of situational cues and the application of ap propriate managerial action. The most significant gain in managerial s kills occurred in the areas of oral communication and self-presentatio n in a mock employment interview. Issues related to AC use in higher e ducation are student motivation, AC cost control, reliability of perfo rmance ratings, and statistical significance/power.