The College-Level Examination Program® (CLEP®) is an exam program consisting of 33 exams in five subject areas that typically correspond to single-semester courses, but some correspond to full-year or two-year courses. CLEP exams offer students the opportunity to receive college course credit for learning that has already occurred outside of the…

The authors investigated the results of the Educational Testing Service Major Field Test (ETS-MFT) administered to business majors at a U.S. state university. Longitudinal trends and cross-sectional differences are documented, including significant performance differences among students of different majors. Findings suggest that a cohort affect…

This article recognises the well-established processes available to educators for the validation of competence, however acquired, and suggests that these mechanisms could be deployed more frequently in future. This proposition is based on employers' adoption of work-based learning strategies that focus on learning outcomes rather than on…

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) created the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) in 1965 and over the years it has become a staple of American higher education. In order to better understand the ramifications of the CLEP program, this article provides a brief history of CLEP and reexamines some of the findings of earlier research. The…