Toward a Description of Successful Graduate Students

At present, the role of testing in education is being radically reevaluated. Advances in cognitive science suggest new approaches to assessment based on a better understanding of the nature of successful performance. Tests, that have been used primarily for prediction and selection are now viewed as having the potential to become more relevant to, and integrated with, the educational process. Such tests, however, require rethinking what should be measured and how it should be assessed. In this report, a broad understanding of the skills and characteristics associated with successful performance in graduate school was developed through discussions with two groups of distinguished graduate faculty members. The first group consisted of eminent psychologists with expertise in cognition and assessment. The second group was composed of distinguished faculty from other fields, including the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. These discussions had four major outcomes. The first was a characterization of the graduate education process as a form of apprenticeship that was suggestive of the kinds of skills and characteristics that contribute to success in many graduate programs. Based on this description, the second outcome was the identification of critical skills associated with scholarly and professional competence that are not currently measured by graduate admissions tests. A tentative list of seven competencies thought to be important for success in academic graduate programs and in subsequent professional roles was developed. The competencies include communication, creativity, explanation, motivation, planning, professionalism, and synthesis. The last two outcomes concerned how these competencies might be assessed. One was a recommendation that discipline‐specific simulation testing would be a useful tool that would permit the identification and concrete definition of skills associated with superior performance, contribute to the development of a theory of success in graduate school, and encourage the development of assessment techniques with well‐established construct validity and educational relevance. Finally, potential exercises that would provide opportunities for students to display these competencies were proposed.