Valid Competency Assessment in Higher Education

The aim of the 15 collaborative projects conducted during the new funding phase of the German research program Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education—Validation and Methodological Innovations (KoKoHs) is to make a significant contribution to advancing the field of modeling and valid measurement of competencies acquired in higher education. The KoKoHs research teams assess generic competencies and domain-specific competencies in teacher education, social and economic sciences, and medicine based on findings from and using competency models and assessment instruments developed during the first KoKoHs funding phase. Further, they enhance, validate, and test measurement approa…

Validation and Applications of KoKoHs Assessments

Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Germany

In order to meet the challenges facing higher education policy and practice, and initiate the necessary fundamental assessment-research, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) established the Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education (KoKoHs) research program in 2011. The program was part of the BMBF funding priority Research on Science and Higher Education aimed at building a capacity for empirical research in higher education.

An Overview of Assessment Practices

On a global scale, attempts to specify conceptually academic learning outcomes have been made mostly in OECD countries. Definitions of learning outcomes can be used not only as an orientation for accrediting degree courses and universities; in some countries, they are used also as a basis for the development of assessment methods. The following will provide an overview of various key approaches and projects in this field.

An Overview of KoKoHs Projects, Models, and Instruments

Demands in Higher Education

The field testing of the models and instruments at higher education institutions throughout Germany and the analyses of the data gathered on students’ competencies and their determinants pointed to a number of common challenges that institutions, policy-makers, practitioners, and students face with regard to different study phases of higher education today.

Development Perspectives for Higher Education Research and Practice

In the 24 collaborative projects of the KoKoHs program, comprising more than 70 individual research projects, objective test instruments were developed for assessing the competencies of students and graduates and tested in higher education practice (see table in section 8). The KoKoHs assessments provide empirically substantiated information on students’ competency levels and insight into the effectiveness of teaching-and-learning opportunities in higher education. KoKoHs has offered means to address major challenges of higher education in a more effective manner and, in the long term, contributed to improving structural, organizational, and individual conditions for teaching and learning a…

Publication of KoKoHs Projects

Competency Orientation in Higher Education

In recent years, higher education, particularly in Germany, has been marked by fundamental structural and programmatic changes after the implementation of the Bologna reform and the orientation towards competencies in the national standards for education, for instance, set forth by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs in Germany. The quality of academic education and its social returns have received increasing attention, and endeavors to develop and implement fair assessments of students’ learning outcomes have revealed diverse challenges. In Germany and internationally, it is becoming increasingly important to define and assess in an objective, reliabl…

Using the U.S.Test of Financial Literacyin Germany—Adaptation and validation

ABSTRACTIn this article, the authors present the adaptation and validation processes conducted to render the American Test of Financial Literacy (TFL) suitable for use in Germany (TFL-G). First, they outline the translation procedure followed and the various cultural adjustments made in line with international standards. Next, they present results from the validation of the TFL-G's content and relations between test scores and external variables, including test takers' prior economic education and interest in economic topics. Preliminary analyses of data gathered from expert interviews and cognitive labs, and the results of the first administration to first-year higher education students (N…

Kompetenzen von Studierenden – Ergebnisse des „KoKoHs“-Programms im Kontext der nationalen und internationalen Assessmentpraxis

Ausgehend von aktuellen Entwicklungen im Hochschulbereich und daraus resultierenden Anforderungen wird in diesem Beitrag die nationale und internationale Assessmentpraxis skizziert und vor diesem Hintergrund zentrale Ergebnisse des „KoKoHs“-Programms dargestellt. Abschliesend werden weitere theoretische, methodologische und empirische Herausforderungen sowie Entwicklungsperspektiven fur Hochschulpolitik und -praxis aufgezeigt.