Graduate Skills Assessment: Summary Report

Executive Summary

In 1999, The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) was commissioned by the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA) to develop a test of generic skills which could be administered at university entry and exit level. Following consultation with university representatives and other stakeholders, written communication, critical thinking, problem solving and interpersonal understandings were selected as the components of the initial Graduate Skills Assessment (GSA).

The GSA administration, data collection, marking, data analysis and reporting routines have been refined on the basis of an initial trial test and two test administrations-Exit 2000 and Entry 2001.

The GSA has satisfactory general statistical properties and is beginning to provide useful data on student generic skills that will be informative to universities, employers and the government.

A total of 28 universities participated in the first two test administrations.
early 1600 students from 19 universities participated in the GSA Exit 2000 test, the majority of whom came from Years 3 and 4.
Over 2000 students from 20 universities participated in the GSA Entry 2001 test, the majority of whom were first degree students in the first year of an undergraduate course.
In both tests students came from a wide range of study fields.
The Exit group had a higher proportion of students undertaking a second degree.
Basic statistics indicate test component reliability and discrimination between test components commensurate with other tests of this kind.
Item difficulties show a satisfactory match with the range of university student abilities.
A characteristic pattern of performance profiles related to the fields of study was seen in the Entry 2001 test, which was similar to that seen with the Exit 2000 test.
Differential performance on the basis of gender was observed. For example, females generally outperformed males on the interpersonal understandings component, and males generally outperformed females on the problem solving component.
Caution needs to be taken if comparing the performance of sub-groups participating in both the Exit 2000 and the Entry 2001 programs because of the largely voluntary nature of student participation.
According to preliminary data from the validity study, factors that appear to be related to performance on all GSA test components are Field of Study (FOS), year level and language spoken at home. Gender and age seem to be related to performance on some components. These relationships need to be investigated further.

As indicated by data related to the trial, performance on the test is correlated with TER/UAI score. The current Validity Study is further elucidating this and other such relationships.

Despite the availability of data from the first two tests, larger and more representative samples will be needed before the aim of producing norms for specific Field of Study groups at particular year levels can be achieved, especially for fields that are currently grouped together.

Possible modifications of the test that are being considered at this stage include the addition of further components, such as basic skills, management skills, information technology skills, research skills and the addition of items to discriminate amongst high achievers. We have also considered the possibility of focusing elements of the current components for students in various broad Field of Study groups (e.g. Humanities, Business/Social Science, Science, IT) and inclusion of sets of items that may be of specific interest to a particular university or course.

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