"BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

Found this website incredibly interesting and just had a quick question...

How much does it cost to take a CLEP or DANTES test?

Thanks!






PS
I'm in it for the education, but I was just wondering how much the cost of the testing compared to tution & fees.

 

As of July 1st, DANTES is now $60 per test + whatever proctor fee applies

CLEP is $50 per test + proctor fee

This translates to anything from $4.17 to $20 per credit hour depending on the examination, which is a real bargain.

Cheers,
Mark

 

As noted, DANTES DSST fees have just risen to $60 per test. CLEP currently $55.

Typical test administration fee - $15. Note that that fee may encompass administration of more than one test taken in the same diet on the same day.

Not clear to me why being "in it for the education", should in any way preclude the use of competency exams to, well . . . demonstrate competencies.

Regardless of what one may be "in it for", the only thing measured is outcome. I was in it for validation of existing competencies. I was not in it for the education, yet all else being equal, the outcomes, grade for grade and pass for pass are indistinguishable from those of one, "in it for the education". How would you distinquish one who had passed and was educated from one who had passed and was not educated? Further, how, in terns of outcomes, would you distinguish one who had passed and sought to be educated from one who had passed and sought only the credential?

If assessments assess that which they are meant to assess, then to be credentialed is to be “educated”, with respect to the competencies under test.

Demonstration of competencies is where the rubber meets the road. Education has no intrinsic value except in relation to measurable outcomes.


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Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

First of all, I believe education is one of the only things this world has to offer that is of intrinsic value.

Secondly, anyone can cram enough facts into their brains to pass a test that they've practiced taking time and time again. I did it myself to take the S.A.T. & the ACT and those 2 tests are, in my opinion, the two poorest examples of educational assessment that there is.

Lastly, education is gaining knowledge and then using it to (hopefully) make a contribution to society.

Of course, everyone has their own opinion on this matter and we all know that there are going to be exceptions: highly educated people who use testing in a valid way, in addition to incredibly stupid people who show up to class, pass, and obtain a degree.

The fact of the matter is that education is the pursuit of knowledge and one cannot "learn" by testing. This is the problem that I believe our public education system is facing now.

But I have no problem with people who just want the credential of a degree & will do whatever they can to get it. My statement was meant to relay the fact that I'm not in pursuit of a degree just so that I can say I have one. I want the education that will back it up.

 

Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

Yes it does. Degrees - do not.

 

Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

I agree with you regarding the value of education, but you are mistaken about the value of exams. SAT and ACT are not competency tests, they are aptitude tests. I dare you to cram for, say, GRE Math and pass for any respectable score. Competency exams measure college-level learning just as professors do on final exams. "Easy" CLEPs simply correspond to "easy" lower division classes - there are a number of those in any degree program.

 

Well said....

I would have to agree with Stanislav. The Johnson O'conner Foundation was the first group that identified the higher high school students vocabulary was, the better they did in college. Soon thereafter, colleges started using SAT as an aptitude test. Completely different than that of a competency exam.

As skoolgurl pointed out, it was learning she was after. Where is it written that skills can only be learned in a classroom? They can be learned in the field. Why then should a student going back to school and waste 16 weeks when he already has the knowledge? This is where competency exams come in. As Stanislav pointed out, for those who want to learn on there own, and test out, more power to them. The competency exams have been identified as comparable to what a student would learn by sitting in a class and successfully completing that class. How the information is learned is actually irrelevant. CLEPS, Dantes, GRE's aren't the only methods of determining competency.

Don't kid yourself about traditional school is the only way to learn. I have hired countless college graduates who couldn't apply what they claimed to have learned in college. What impresses me is what a graduate had to go through to accomplish their goal. Learning how to juggle 20 units, a full time job and figure out how to pay for college is impressive enough. If they have the right attitude and they can and want to learn, then they usually succeed. As most know, college has a massive amount of data dumping after each course, and sometimes after each exam. Who was the 13th President anyway? Who was his Vice President? Isn't it better to understand how to learn and find the information when it is needed?

Other professions will accept competency such as Law. Most people don't realize that if a person works for a judge, does an apprenticeship they can ultimately sit for the bar. You can also attend a non ABA approved law program. If the student passes the baby bar, and the 4 year course, they too can sit for the bar. Most will attend an ABA approved law school, and many will become attorneys. The percentage of successful passage of the bar is higher than the other methods, but ultimately what matters is your score on the bar. If you pass, you pass.

 

Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

Well, as it relates to the post you quote, how do you know that you know, or know what others may know, unless competencies are assessed? To speak of education or being educated without reference to some assessment metric is meaningless.

How do you know that? I know some who can do know such thing, for I have coached them through a series of proficiency exams and watched them fail where they had tried to do exactly as you suggest, that is, memorize solutions without understanding how they are derived.

In the case of the SAT I couldn't agree more. However, this is an aptitude tests, not a competency exam, where the examinee's command of a subject at a specific academic level, is assessed.

No, that is not a definition of education. Education could be defined as “gaining knowledge” as you suggest, but there is no definition detailing the use to which that knowledge must be put. That is, there is no requirement of any contribution to society before “gaining knowledge” becomes education, or, an education.

And to return to the point at hand, how do you know you have gained knowledge, without testing (assessment)? Is it at all meaningful to talk of education without testing? If you declare X to be educated, how do you know that to be so unless X demonstrates competencies? The education X may have had, only finds expression and meaning in terms of quantifiable measurement (being deliberately redundant here).

That measurement is, or should be, blind to process. The superiority of this or that process cannot be assessed except in relation to measurable outcomes. Comparison of the efficiency and effectiveness of pedagogies can only be judged relative to some uniform metric. That is, relative to some standardized test. To date, several hundred thousand trials have been conducted, using CLEP, DANTES (DSST), ACT/PEP/ECE, GRE subject exams. I see no evidence in the data, that indicates BA-in-4-Weeks-methods yield inferior results in terms of outcomes.

I guess the question remains, how do you know this to be true? Given two graduates who have demonstrated competencies using the same or equivalent metrics, how do you determine one to be extremely stupid and the other not, based on identical outcomes? This isn’t simply a matter of opinion. The evidence is either there or it isn’t. What is the basis for your conclusion?

I know of no one who contends that you attain required competencies simply by testing (though mock testing is a first class aid to learning – no doubt about it). However, you cannot determine what learning has taken place without testing. Unless acquired skills are demonstrated and their quality measured, we cannot know squat about learning.

Ah! Therein lies the rub. You have on the one hand, formal evidence of competence (the credential - the degree) that attests to your learning and fitness, and on the other . . . an education (to back it up). How will you know you have an education? How will you know you have a degree AND an education, or, a degree but no education?

Will you just, “know”? That is, will it be a feeling? If not, how will you or anyone else, objectively assess when it is you have reached the point of “having an education” rather than simply a degree?

Perhaps is it that “an education” is not amenable to measurement? If it is not, how do you know it exists? One cannot know the unknowable. In the case of two graduates who have undergone the same or equivalent degree assessment, how would you determine one to be educated and the other not?



Valid testing is blind to process. Education, "an education", can only be defined and expressed in terms of measurable outcomes.

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Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

Degrees do not, what?

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Re: Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

"have intrinsic value other than... ", your quote.
"An education" certainly have value irregardless of any measurement and credentionalling, simply as part of the process of knowledge dissemination and personal enrichment. Degrees are different animal, and they, indeed, have the certification of measurable learning outcomes as a primary function. In other words, I mostly agree with you, just disagree with your usage of the term "education".

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

You are testifying here to the effects of process. Specifically, which process? How do you know any dissemination of knowledge occurred or personal enrichment accrued unless you measure and establish the existence of new competencies? Specifically, which process resulting in an education, requires no validation? If the results of this process are not measured, attestation as to its effects are entirely speculative.

Again, and with further delineation: education has no intrinsic value, currency, or coin, except in relation to measurable outcomes.




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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

If you and I don't know something, it doesn't mean it do not exist.

Again, I am not trying to reason that people following the "traditional" process have any more "education" than those who study in some other way and then test out. You are absolutely right - there is no evidence of that, and, on the other hand, there is some evidence to the contrary (the process of "norming" itself provide such evidence). Yet, people who just read the book or listen to lectures (variand: watch Discovery Channel) still receive "education", we just can't say how much education.

 

Testing is the worst measure of educational attainment, except for all the rest.

 

Exactly.

 

I agree.

At this point in my life, I'm interested in religious studies, simply for my own edification. That means that I don't care very much about degrees, accreditation, university credit or about how others judge my education. I care a great deal about whether my studies can help me to make better sense of the phenomenon of human religiosity.

Education. I guess that in my case that means a broadening of my knowledge base, along with an ability to understand the material's importance, to perceive novel interconnections and an ability to improvise creatively. Penultimately, I guess that the goal is to be able to better see the world-wide phenomenon of human religiosity synoptically and to come to a better understanding of how human beings have found meaning in their existential predicament. And ultimately, the goal might be to help me do the same in mine.

Who are you talking about? The student him or herself? Or outside observers?

Obviously successful education is going to bring about inner changes. That's the point. I suppose that students can perceive that in themselves when they can read more out of the same material, when they can bring additional material to bear on it and form novel conclusions.

But that's not immediately visible to anyone else. Unless they are willing to take your word, they will need to see some external evidence. Unfortunately, a standardized multiple choice exam probably isn't going to capture a lot of what education in my sense is aiming at, and may miss the point entirely if it simply becomes something to cram for and regurgitate.

Personally, I think that you can get a better picture of a student's intellectual growth by using a variety of measures, like papers, class discussion, practical or creative exercises and the like. But I'm afraid that any set of external measures are going to be crude indicators of the kind of inner cognitive changes that education is shooting for.

You are an educational behaviorist, aren't you?

You seem to me to be saying that a student's growing intellectual sophistication has no value unless they pass an exam. And you also seem to be implying that if they can pass an exam, then any further question of their understanding is moot.

I couldn't disagree more.

 

They get more out of the same material? How do they know they have gotten more out of the same material unless they compare what is with what used to be? That is, they take a measure (of what they once got out of the material), and another measure (of what they now get out of the material), and establish a difference.

Nevertheless, it is an examination establishing, to the satisfaction of the examiner (who is also the examinee), a difference in a demonstrable skill. [/B][/QUOTE]

Well, it is true in any circumstance that there are internal audits of skill sets, what the subject thinks he knows, and an external audits of skill sets, what others think he knows.

”[P]robably”, “may miss”, “if it simply becomes something to cram for and regurgitate.” Well, yes, probably it may, if . . . Then again, it may not. The issue is not the adequacy of any particular form of exam, and one can “if”, “and”, or, “but” ones way to almost any conclusion about anything. The issue is whether education, “an education”, can be said to exist in the absence of demonstrable outcomes.

No, what I am saying is that we or you cannot know if the subject has any particular competency unless we test for it. It does not matter who the subject may be. Even if it be yourself, you can say naught about the effects of process and the possession of a skill unless and until that skill has been made manifest. In other words, until it has been demonstrated.

You can know zip about "growing intellectual sophistication" unless you establish the existence of a delta in demonstrable competencies, between what was and what is. Between the prior level of competence and the new level of competence. In order to establish a delta, you must measure the level of a skill at least twice. That is to say you must test it.

No I am not implying that and it would be wrong to infer that from anything I've written. What I have said is that you cannot know learning has taken place unless it manifests itself in the form of some skill amenable to measurement and that that that skill is examined relative to some benchmark.



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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

True, but if its existence cannot be established, then it becomes a matter of faith, not fact. The question I have asked here, ad nauseam, is that if you do not test, how do you know learning has taken place? Remember, the initial talk was of testing, the resulting attestation to fitness (the degree), and an education to back them up. You cannot discern an education, separate and distinct from testing. There is not any thing called “an education” that can be described other than in terms of measurable outcomes.

Again, my question is how you can know that? You cannot know that without examining what they knew before the treatment (reading the book, watch the discovery Channel), and what the knew after the treatment. You can assume, but you know what happens when one does that.

No, the truth is that whether or not a process results in learning is knowable only in terms of demonstrable, measurable, outcomes. If you don’t test, you can’t know.

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

Yes. But, again, if I don't know doesn't mean some subject does not exist. Speaking of education, BOTH education itself and the measure of such have value.
Additionaly, reading books DOES result in learning. How do I know? People tried it before, tested their knowledge and found that learning took place! And you are one of them.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "BA in 4 Weeks" Question...

No, what that tells us is that reading books can result in learning. Whether or not John Doe learned anything from reading a specific book can only be discerned by testing John Doe's knowledge and competence relative to the material in that book. Whether you, or I, or anyone else developed measurable skills by reading a book, tells us nothing about the outcomes with respect to John Doe.

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My reason for posting in this thread has been to challenge the pernicious fallacy that education can be discerned without reference to measurable outcomes. That pursuit of a degree is not the pursuit of an education. A degree is an attestation to competence at a prescribed level of academic attainment. Traditionally, it has been society’s way of offering recognition that the holder has had, “an education”.

Some disparage pursuit of the credential in favor of “an education”, implying that those “in it for the degree” are driven by some lesser ideal than those “in it for the education”. Some ridicule the notion that passing tests evidences “an education”. Those who do, presume to know better, what an education might be and can, apparently, simply divine its existence. This is indeed, an awesome power.


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