Tests Aren't Best Way to Evaluate Graduates' Skills, Business Leaders Say in Survey
The Chronicle of Higher Education


American business leaders think that college graduates should arrive at the nation's work places with real-world skills. But a new survey released on Tuesday by the Association of American Colleges and Universities reveals that many employers believe today's applicants are not ready to advance within their corporations. Worse still, employers have little use for some of academe's more traditional assessment indexes of student achievement and preparedness, including standardized tests and college transcripts.

The association asked 301 employers whose companies have at least 25 employees and whose new hires include at least a quarter with bachelor's degrees or higher about the level of skills and preparedness they expected from college graduates

How should colleges assess and improve student learning PDF
From press release:

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) released the results of a national survey of employers of college graduates today as part of its Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative. The survey findings show that employers see a need for significant improvement in the skills and knowledge recent college graduates are bringing to today’s workplace. They judge several common approaches to assessment inadequate to the task of preparing today’s students for success in today’s competitive global economy.

Frustration With Colleges' Assessments

When asked what learning approaches and assessment methods companies valued most in evaluating a new hire's potential for success, employers overwhelmingly favored integrated, applied-learning experiences like faculty-supervised internships, community-based projects, and comprehensive senior projects. They ranked those experiences just above essay tests and electronic portfolios of student work, which they said were also helpful in demonstrating an applicant's analytic, problem-solving, and writing abilities.

Only 29 percent said that college transcripts were either very or fairly useful to them in assessing an applicant's skills and knowledge. At the very bottom of the heap were multiple-choice and general-knowledge tests, which most business executives dismissed as ineffective means of assessment.