Minimal evidence exists regarding the retrospective pretest's effectiveness as a tool to obtain usable, indirect evidence of student learning in open admissions institutions. The researcher conducted this study to determine if a retrospective pretest more accurately detected a change in students' knowledge compared to a conventional…

We conducted correlational and performance discrepancy analyses on exam and achievement data taken from students in three psychology courses. Across courses, the same findings emerged. First, only a small fraction of students consistently performed more strongly on one type of assessment (e.g., multiple-choice) than on another (e.g., short…