There are (at least) two different ways I have implemented pretesting, and I suspect that the effectiveness varies dramatically depending on the course. First, there is pretesting for background knowledge in a course so that you can make some judgment about what you can or cannot assume your students know. I have used this kind of pretesting in graduate experimental design and analysis courses (aka, advanced stats for grad students) and have then tailored the lectures to include the appropriate level of background info. This type has also offered some insights into how to individualize parts of the course (identifying people who might need certain kinds of additional guidance).

Another form of pretesting that might be even more effective for broader use is the online polling of students at the start of a lecture so that I can gauge where we are starting and were we need to get to. This type of on-going pretesting can be used as motivation (if students were supposed to read in advance, then you get a measure of how likely it is that they have done so), but it can also be used as part of a dynamic presentation by targeting areas of potential misunderstanding. This does require being prepared to adjust the teaching on the fly, but I think current technology makes that very doable.

Overall, I am a big believer in the interactive classroom, and I think snapshot quizzes or problems can be effective for keeping things interesting and on track.

Although I have never done it or even experienced it in my full career, I still think that a pretest is a good idea if it can give the lecturer a feel for how this cohort of students might have to be handled (differently). It should therefore not be an ordinary test, but be designed to explore any misunderstandings, common failings, unexpected failings, and perhaps even motivate the students to do some pre-reading. It should reveal any non-normal statistical distributions as well as measure the extremes in the class.

It is not good for lecturers to blame the poor performance of their class at the end of the year on the poor intake unless proven to be so through a pretest. Pretested is pre-warned. Common lecturer assumptions are that students are prepared, have appropriate Chemistry, Physics, and Maths or other foundation skills. These assumptions can suddenly be proven to be very wrong!

Thank you, Ian! I agree with you - I think that this Intro Exam or however we call it can be very effective tool because it allows instructor to adjust his teaching/lecturing process in order to account current students' standing. However, I do not see why this method is not widely used? Yes, it requires some efforts to create this assessment, analyze it later and incorporate it into your teaching way. BUT it worth it!

By the way, I believe that there are no bad students, but there can be not professional teachers. :)

Pretesting is useful if you differentiate your teaching to make use of the results. Some students know more than you realise and some know less. This only works well for tutorial or problem based teaching.

There are (at least) two different ways I have implemented pretesting, and I suspect that the effectiveness varies dramatically depending on the course. First, there is pretesting for background knowledge in a course so that you can make some judgment about what you can or cannot assume your students know. I have used this kind of pretesting in graduate experimental design and analysis courses (aka, advanced stats for grad students) and have then tailored the lectures to include the appropriate level of background info. This type has also offered some insights into how to individualize parts of the course (identifying people who might need certain kinds of additional guidance).

Another form of pretesting that might be even more effective for broader use is the online polling of students at the start of a lecture so that I can gauge where we are starting and were we need to get to. This type of on-going pretesting can be used as motivation (if students were supposed to read in advance, then you get a measure of how likely it is that they have done so), but it can also be used as part of a dynamic presentation by targeting areas of potential misunderstanding. This does require being prepared to adjust the teaching on the fly, but I think current technology makes that very doable.

Overall, I am a big believer in the interactive classroom, and I think snapshot quizzes or problems can be effective for keeping things interesting and on track.

Pavel, we have been doing this pre-test in my college. Our students completed secondary school in November, and they come in May. There is this lapse of about 7 months, and we need to see their 'take -off' point. We get them to do this Biology test of 50 multiple choice questions. We compare their performance at the end of semester with this pre-test. The important thing is what difference we can make as a teacher.

It's also necessary for us as teachers here. We are just 1 avenue offering pre-university education, and we compete with other systems for 'good' students who will perform well even when they are in university. Even if students do well here, but they don't do well in university, our reputation may be affected, and future cohorts may prefer other pre-university colleges, leaving us with even poorer students. We have to do what we can to prevent that. To change a poor performing student to a high performer takes a lot of effort, but it is possible with a willing student.

Knowing the student's background helps you in selecting examples, and in choosing your vocabulary. Has the student learned the Fourier transform beforehand in the Math class? Has the student learned about the Gaussian distribution beforehand in the Stats class? {This post is a self-supporting example!}

During my recent research , i have seen a tremendous potential in instruction improvement by knowing your students' backgrounds, mindsets, preconceptions, misconceptions, and idiosyncrasies. Out of the information collected , we can create emerging cases/profiles and categorize them into boundary cases as well as typical cases to review and refine the method of delivery in a contextualized manner.

The student can not be a journey of acedente because it is the subject of learning. Teaching is not only add new information, but resinificar existing. So we must also structured and informal surveys. There are many studies that indicate these preconceptions in different areas of knowledge and subjects. Emphasizing. The student is the subject of knowledge and only a dialogical attitude may favor their inclusion in the learning process.