Editor,
As a senior in the Anderson Schools of Management, I'll be taking the Learning Assurance Test exit exam as part of the required Management 498 course.
There are a few issues about this that I believe are important to all graduating business students and should be addressed.
First, the support offered by Anderson for exam preparation is insufficient.
The one-page "knowledge base" review sheet for exam preparation is not adequate. Students vary in the way they prepare for exams, and this isn't accounted for. I'm upset that the only support offered - links to sample questions - were taken offline. I visited the page earlier this semester, and because I didn't have time at that point to take the sample exams online, I printed the questions.
My home printing resources were insufficient, so not all the questions were printed. I returned later to find the sample questions replaced by general outlines, some only three lines long.
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Instructors should schedule review sessions throughout the semester. A large percentage of UNM students are nontraditional, often full- or part-time working parents who may take semesters off to pay or save for tuition. For those of us who took finance and operations management classes four semesters ago, assistance in reviewing core concepts is important.
Management 498 does guarantee a general review of many skills needed for broad-based strategy making and execution. However, specifics in accounting, marketing, finance and organizational behavior are not covered in depth and cannot be covered as such because the course focus is broader and more holistic in context.
Yet these specifics are exactly what we will be tested on in the LAT.
It's unfair to expect only Management 498 instructors to review for the LAT. How can one instructor review everything we learned in business school during midterms and finals in our last semester? They're already spending time teaching an intense workload with higher levels of analysis than prior classes.
It's also likely that students would rather spend the last class reviewing for the final than stressing about remembering everything we were taught in the past few years.
Giving evaluations after the test is also unfair to the instructor. I realize it's not the instructor's fault this test was dumped on them or that it counts for 10 percent of the overall grade, but it's highly possible that negative feelings associated with the LAT due to lack of support in preparation will negatively influence instructor evaluations.
Finally, I haven't seen any information about notification on our scores. If this accounts for 10 percent of our grade, shouldn't we have a right to see our score? It seems logical that Anderson would offer more support than it has, especially if the exam is key for maintaining its success and standing as an accredited institution.
If UNM wants future support - financial or otherwise - from alumni, then I'd suggest offering more support, as opposed to frustration and negativity, for their success in LAT preparation. It would be much appreciated by us, your customers and students.
Colleen Gorman
UNM student
