An Analysis of Areas of Knowledge and Methods of Assessments as Seen on Entrance Exams from Around the World

Abstract

Higher education institutes have seen massive growth over the decades in terms of student enrollment. To maintain the quality of education provided to students, scholars, and practitioners have advocated for students to submit an entrance exam as a part of the admission application. This study analyzed trends in all national and standardized entrance exams (N= 119) to see which areas of knowledge and methods of assessments are most commonly utilized in entrance exams around the world. The areas of knowledge that were looked at in this study: English, Language Arts, Math, History, Government Studies, Religion, and Hard Science. The methods of assessment that were looked at in this study: Supplied response, Selected response, Practical, and Oral. Data was collected through publicly available documents and entered into a database to then analyze and recognize trends. The findings of this study show that the most common area of knowledge that is tested is Language Arts (N = 107) and the most common method of assessment is supplied response (N = 81).