What Is the Alignment Between Knowledge and Skill for University Success and State Academic Content Standards? / David T. Conley.

This paper presents findings of a study on the gap between high-school academic content standards and the knowledge and skills needed for success in entry-level university courses. The study had two parts. The first described the development of standards of knowledge and skills for university success (KSUS) through a combination of a modified version of the Delphi method and content analysis to establish their validity as a reference point for analyzing state academic-content standards. The KSUS standards were developed from data collected from 400 faculty members and administrators from 20 universities. Additional data were derived from content analysis of examples of student work. The second part of the study employed content-alignment analysis in a pilot study of one state's standards in reading, mathematics, and science: The state of Washington's essential academic learning requirements were analyzed against the KSUS standards. The results are described in narration, supplemented in tabular form. The KSUS, included in an appendix, represent the only comprehensive statement of university entry-level skills in a standards-like format. The pilot analysis demonstrated one strategy that can be employed to identify the degree of alignment between state and university academic-content standards. (Contains 15 references.) (WFA)

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