College and Research Libraries MARY JANE HAMSHER and JOHN F. HARVEY Exemption Tests in Library Education Exemption tests have sometimes been used in library schools to enable persons with adequate knowledge of a subject, either from previous study or experience, to eliminate otherwise required courses from their programs. In an effort to determine their value, the Gradu- ate School of Library Science at Drexel Institute of Technology studied the results of exemption tests taken there in 1962, 1963, 1964, and 1965. Circumstances under which they were taken, the ratio of passes to failures, and their correlation with previous study and experi- ence are described. C onc.Zusions are given. BACKGROUND A DISTINCTIVE FEATURE of graduate li- brary education is the widely varying backgrounds brought by students to the program-both in terms of previous li- brary experience and library education. The existence of both graduate and un- dergraduate library education creates a situation in which some students enter graduate school after having completed undergraduate courses closely parallel- ing part of the graduate curriculum. While occasionally, students with under- graduate course work matriculate di- rectly from college, more often they ob- tain library experience before entering graduate school. In addition, despite the profession's emphasis upon separation of professional from nonprofessional tasks, in many libraries personnel without li- brary education perform both kinds of duties. In this way, many students have learned much about library objectives and procedures. Thus, while some grad- Miss Hamsher is Children's Librarian in the Radnor Township Memorial Library in Wayne, Pennsylvania; Dr. Harvey is Chair- man of the Department of Library Science in the University of T ehran in Iran . uate library science students have been only library patrons, others bring to graduate work considerable experience or undergraduate library science course work, or, frequently, both. To allow for this variance in student backgrounds and to avoid the criticism of requiring students to repeat course work already covered, the Drexel Insti- tute of Technology Graduate School of Library Science devised a system of ex- emption examinations. Before or during his first six weeks of Drexel course work, a student who felt competent in a par- ticular course area might take an ex- emption test covering that area. If, on either of two attempts he passed the exemption test, he was exempted from the course and given credit for it. In general, only the basic core courses re- quired of all students were exempted, although occasionally, due to special ex- perience or preparation, students were given permission to take examinations in such other subjects as School Library Administration or Reference Materials in the Humanities. At present, four bas- ic courses are required of all students: Library in Society, the historical de- velopment of libraries and their role in today's society; Basic Reference Sources; I 161 162 I College & Research Libraries • March 1969 Introduction to Cataloging and Classifi- cation; and Selection of Library Mate- rials . Previous to the college year 1963---- 1964 there was a fifth basic required course-Introduction to Library Service -which provided an orientation to li- brarianship, but with the Fall term 1963 its content was incorporated into other courses. Such exemption examinations were not new in higher education nor even in library education, but Drexel's ap- plication of them may have been more extensive than usually has occurred. Michigan State University has used ex- emption testing extensively in its Basic College to allow students to take final sequential course tests one or more terms earlier than was scheduled, and if passed successfully, the student was given credit and exempted from the re- mainder of the course. 1 The University of California at Davis has awarded credit to beginning freshmen who passed successfully the CEEB Ad- vanced Placement Examination and al- lowed them to take more advanced courses. 2 The University of Chicago Col- lege examination program of the 1930's and 1940's was famous. Advancement in the college was based on passing ex- aminations rather than on course work, and the student who could pass exami- nations faster than the average could graduate sooner. 3 Other library schools have used such tests, but there seems to be no recent literature on it. Shearhouse comments that librarians have not generally fore- seen the use of standardized tests, there being few if any available on a graduate level. Illinois, Peabody, Albany, Denver, and Columbia have had such experi- 1 L . A. Haak, " Acceleration b y Examination," Col- lege and University, XXIX (October 1953 ) , 39-53. 2 S. E . Wayne, " Advanced Standing Credit Based on the Advanced Placement Examination at the Uni- versity of California at Davis," College and University, XLIII (Spring 1967) , 308-24. 3 Jane Allison and Benjamin Bloom , " The Opera- tion and Evaluation of a College Testing Program," Journal of General Education, IV (April 1950), 221- 33. ence. At Denver such tests were used extensively in the 1930's, and students who scored well on them were excused from the particular course and given credit for it. All tests in these schools (except Columbia) were constructed by individual faculty members, as at Drex- el.4 ExAMINATIONS TAKEN In order to evaluate the Drexel ex- emption system and gain an insight into its use, the 1962-65 examinations were studied. During this four-year period a total of 481 examinations were taken by 252 students, so students using the ex- emption system averaged 1.9 examina- tions a piece. Some 48 per cent of the examinations taken were passed. The greatest number of examinations was taken in 1962, 216, or seventy examina- tions per one hundred students enrolled (using the Spring Quarter enrollment figures as the standard ) , as shown in Table 1. Thirty-one tests or 12 per cent of the total number taken in four years were retests. Apparently, the chances of passing a test on the second attempt were not much better than on the first attempt, with 52 per cent of the retests being passed. In 1963, although enrollment had in- creased by 39 per cent, the number of examinations taken decreased by 36 per cent and the ratio taken per one hun- TABLE 1 NUMBER OF DREXEL EXEMPTION EXAMINATION S TAKEN EACH YEAR PER 100 STUDENTS Number of Students Enrolled in Spring Year Quarter 1962 216 1963 291 1964 374 1965 403 Number of Examinations Taken 152 97 115 117 481 Examinations Taken P er Each 100 Students 70 33 31 29 4 Henry Shearhouse, "University of Illinois Library School Placement Examination," Journal of Educa- tional R esearch XLIV (March 1951), 481-9. Exemption Tests in Library Education I 163 dred students decreased to thirty-three. In 1964 and 1965 the number of exami- nations taken rose slightly, but the ratio taken per one hundred students con- tinued to drop, to thirty-one in 1964 and twenty-nine in 1965. One explanation for the sharp drop between 1962 and 1963 was that Intro- duction to Library Service was a course which many students attempted to ex- empt, often successfully. In 1962, it ac- counted for one-third of the examina- tions taken and was passed. 70 per cent of the time. With the school year 1963- 1964 this course was dropped from the curriculum, so in 1963 it accounted for only one-fifth of the examinations. If we temporarily exclude the figures for In- troduction of Library Service and con- sider only those for the four basic ex- aminations offered throughout the entire four-year period, the ratio of examina- tions taken per one hundred students in 1962 through 1965 becomes forty, twen- ty-five, twenty-nine, twenty-eight. There is still a definite drop between 1962 and the following years, but the difference is reduced. Perhaps their novelty in 1962 attracted more students to the ex- emption tests than in later years. RATIOS What was the rate of successful com- pletion? Over a seven-year period Haak found the students in one of the Michi- gan State University Basic College courses, Effective Living, to have in- cluded 18 per cent of the students en- rolled in the Basic College courses, and that 94 per cent who took the examina- tion early passed. 5 Wayne found 49 per cent of those who took the Advanced Placement Examination to have passed it. 6 In 1948 Illinois embarked on a pro- gram of exemption test development to cover its undergraduate library science prerequisites. Of the forty-four students reported to have taken the tests, seven were exempted from courses, and some from all of the core course program. 7 The rate of successful Drexel exami- nation completion was considerably low- er at the end of the period than at the beginning, but in this case there was a pattern not of sudden change but of steady decline (see Table 2). In 1962 59 per cent of the examinations taken were passed, in 1963 the rate was down to 48 per cent, in 1964 to 43 per cent, and in 1965 only 38 per cent were passed. It is clear, then, that in 1963, 1964, and 1965, there were considera- bly fewer examinations taken in rela- tion to enrollment than in 1962, and that each year the examinations were 5 Haak, op. cit. , 39-53. 6 Wayne , op. cit. , 308-24 . 7 Shearhouse, op. cit. 481-9. TABLE 2 SuccESSFUL CoMPLETION RATE FOR EACH CouRSE 1962 1963 1964 1965 TOTAL Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent Per Cent P er Cent of Time of Time of Time of Time of Tim e CouRsE Passed Passed Passed Passed Pass ed Library in Society 64 70 59 39 58 Cataloging and Classification 25 40 19 21 23 Basic Reference 55 45 52 71 57 Selection of Library Materials 31 18 27 11 20 Introduction to Library Service 70 65 not offered not offered 68 Advanced Courses 85 20 60 50 63 TOTAL 59 48 43 38 48 164 I College & Research Libraries • March 1969 failed more frequently than the year be- fore. Apparently, either standards for successful completion of the examina- tions went up or the quality of students deteriorated. Evidence from the Drexel Admissions Office suggests that qualifi- cations improved and the School be- came more selective during this period, so apparently faculty members made the examinations more difficult to pass. In considering the frequency with which each course examination was taken and the frequency with which each was passed, it is not surprising to find a correlation between the two: in general those examinations on which students were most often successful were those most frequently attempt- ed. Apparently word got around among the students about the levels of diffi- culty of the examinations. We have already seen that the examination for Introduction to Library Service, which was taken far more frequently than any other in 1962, was also passed with con- siderably more frequency than any oth- er. Similarly, of the four basic examina- tions taken over the entire four-year period, the two most frequently taken were also the two with the highest rate of successful completion. Library in So- ciety and Basic Reference, each of which accounts for 23 per cent of the total number of examinations taken, were al- so the ones most frequently passed, 58 per cent and 57 per cent respectively (see Table 3). In comparison, over the four-year period Introduction of Cata- loging and Classification accounted for 17 per cent of the total number of ex- aminations taken and Selection of Li- brary Materials for 16 per cent, and both were failed four of every five times they were taken. However, even though there is a correlation between the fre- quency with which the examinations were taken and the frequency with which they were passed, it should be noted that the variance between the two most frequently taken examinations and the two least frequently taken is considerably greater in terms of success rate than it is in terms of frequency rate. WERE PREVIous ExPERIENCE AND LIBRARY EDUCATION HELPFUL? As previously mentioned, one of the prime reasons for using exemption tests TABLE 3 NuMBER OF TIMES EAcH ExAMINATION TAKEN AND ITs PERCENTAGE OF THE ToTAL NuMBER OF ExAMINATIONS TAKEN THAT YEAR 1962 1963 1964 1965 TOTAL Number Number Number Number Number of Times of Times of Times of Times of Times Examina- Examina- Exam ina- Exam ina- Examina- tion Per Cent tion Per Cent tion Per Cent tion Per Cent tion Per Cent CoURSE Taken of Total Taken of Total Taken of Total Taken of Total Taken of Total Library in Society 25 16 23 24 41 36 23 20 112 23 Cataloging and Classification 16 10 10 10 27 23 28 24 81 17 Basic Reference 29 19 22 23 27 24 34 29 112 23 Selection of Library Materials 16 11 17 17 15 13 28 24 76 16 Introduction to Library Service 53 35 20 21 not offered not offered 73 15 Advanced Courses 13 9 5 5 5 4 7 3 27 6 TOTAL 152 100 97 100 115 100 117 100 481 100 Exemption Tests in Library Education I 165 TABLE 4 NuMBER OF STUDENTS IN EAcH CATEGORY AND NuMBER OF ExAMINATIONS TAKEN BY STUDENTS IN EACH CATEGORY Number of Category Students A Experience and Course Work 66 B Experience . 99' c Course Work 7 D No Experience or Course Work 80 252 was to allow for the differences in pre- vious experience and library science course work which incoming students brought to graduate school. Naturally the assumption was that such experi- ence and education would assist the stu- dent in passing the examination. What was experience in other fields? Allison and Bloom found the number of previ- ous courses in a subject to correlate positively with success on Chicago ex- aminations.8 Ostlund tested science teachers to find a positive correlation between course work background in a subject and knowledge of it. He con- cluded that background and achieve- ment were related predictably and that ccas one increased in background and experience, subject matter and reason- 8 Allison and Bloom, op. cit., 221-33. Number of Average Number of Per Cent of Examinations Per Cent of Examinations Per Total Taken Total Student 26 164 34 2.5 39 176 37 1.8 3 26 5 3.7 31 115 24 1.4 100 481 100 T.9 ing became augmented concomitantly."9 In order to see what effect previous experience had on the examinations, the Drexel students who had taken them were divided into four categories (see Tables 4 and 5). Group A was com- posed of students who had had both previous library science course work and working library experience. Group B consisted of students with working li- brary experience but no library science course work; Group C of students who had had previous course work, but no library experience; and Group D of those students who had had neither experi- ence nor course work No attempt was made to distinguish between previous 9 Leonard Ostlund, "College Transcripts and Stand- ardized Tests as Criteria for Graduate Placement," School and Society, LXXXIV (January 18, 1958), 41-3. TABLE 5 SuccEsSFUL CoMPLETION RATES FOR EAcH CATEGORY OF STUDENT GROUP A GROUP B GROUP c GROUPD ToTAL Per Cent of Per Cent of Per Cent of Per Cent of Per Cent of Times Times Times Times Times CouRsE Passed Passed Passed Passed Passed Library in Society 45 43 50 83 58 Cataloging and Classification 14 36 43 10 23 Basic Reference . 53 48 84 79 57 Selection of Library Materials . . . 23 17 0 29 20 Introduction to Library Service 85 58 100 73 68 Advanced Courses 67 73 0 33 63 TOTAL . 40 45 42 64 48 166 I College & Research Libraries • March 1969 graduate or undergraduate course work. However, it may be assumed that the course work was usually undergraduate, because graduate courses could be transferred into Drexel, thereby elimi- nating the need to take exemption ex- aminations. It would seem logical that the majority of the students taking ex- aminations would have had previous course work or experience, and this was the case, with Group A accounting for 26 per cent and Group B for 39 per cent. However, a surprisingly large mi- nority ( 31 per cent) belonged to Group D. Group C consisted of only 3 per cent of the total number. Of the four groups, students in Group C tended to take the largest number of examinations, averaging 3.7 examina- tions each, while students in Group D who were the most successful on the examinations taken, attempted the few- est number, only 1.4 each. Perhaps this group attempted only the examinations they were confident of passing. It is in- teresting, also, that the number of ex- aminations taken by Group D decreased markedly over the period studied, in 1962 accounting for 30 per cent of the total taken; in 1963, 35 per cent; in 1964, 20 per cent; and in 1965 only 10 per cent. Perhaps this group was quite sen- sitive to the increasing difficulty of the examinations, or perhaps the school ad- ministration began to discourage such students from taking the examinations. Although theoretically it would seem that students with previous experience or course work would be most successful on the examinations, the results did not bear this out. It was found instead, that of the total number of examinations tak- en by students in Group D , 64 per cent were passed, while students in Group B passed only 45 per cent and students in Group A, with previous working ex- perience and course work, passed only 40 per cent of the examinations taken. Group C took twenty-six examinations and passed 42 per cent of them. Appar- ently neither the students' previous ex- perience nor course work was sufficiently similar to Drexel course work to be par- ticularly helpful. Students in Group D did extremely well on the examinations for Library in Society and Basic Reference, and rea- sonably well on Introduction to Library Service, but this was true also for Groups A and B. However, Group D was able to pass only 10 per cent of the Intro- duction to Cataloging and Classification examinations which they took. Group A did only slightly better, passing this examination only 14 per cent of the time, but Group B was relatively suc- cessful, passing it 36 per cent of the time, presumably showing the value of experience. Perhaps Group A was over- confident because of their course work background, so took more examinations than they were well prepared for. In considering the frequency with which the examinations were taken by each group of students, we find a cor- relation with the frequency of success- ful completion for Groups B and D, but not for Groups C and A (see Table 6). SuccEss FOR SPECIFIC CoLLEGES As a sidelight to the student success based on previous course work, it was possible to determine the success of the graduates of particular undergraduate departments of library science in the Philadelphia area. These results are shown in Table 7. The graduates of two colleges had reasonably good success, and the graduates of two others did not. However, no group of graduates was successful more than 57 per cent of the time, and for the four colleges together the percentage of success was only 40 per cent, lower than the overall average. Apparently these students were over- confident and their undergraduate course work not as suitable as expected in preparing them for Drexel graduate work. Their overconfidence was shown by the fact that they took more exami- Exemption Tests in Library Education I 167 TABLE 6 NuMBER OF TIMES ExAMINATION TAKEN BY MEMBERS OF A CATEGORY AND ITS PERCENTAGE oF ToTAL NuMBER OF ExAMINATIONS TAKEN BY MEMBERS OF THAT CATEGORY GROUP A GROUP B GROUP c GROUPD Number Number of Times of Times Examina- Examina- tion P er Cent tion CoURsE Taken of Total Taken Library in Society 33 20 35 Cataloging and Classification 36 22 28 Basic Reference 45 27 42 Selection of Library Materials 31 19 23 Introduction to Library Service 13 8 33 Advanced Courses 6 4 15 TOTAL . 164 100 176 nations than the average per student, 2.8. Several graduates of College B took exemption tests for advanced courses with very good success. Obviously re- sults such as those in Table 7 help Drex- el's Adm~ssion Office assess credentials for particular colleges for particular pe- riods of time, at least when the data are statistically significant. ADVANCED CouRsEs Table 3 shows twenty-seven exami- nations to have been taken for advanced courses, half of them in 1962. They made up only 6 per cent of all exemption ex- aminations taken. Table 2 shows their success rate to have been fifteen per- centage points above that of other ex- aminations. Most of the studei)ts taking these examinations were in Group B, with experience, and most were women, Number Number of Times of Times Examina- Examina- Per Cent tion Per Cent tion Per Cent of Total Taken of Total Taken of Total 20 4 15 40 35 16 7 27 10 9 24 6 23 19 16 13 8 31 14 12 19 1 4 26 23 8 0 0 6 5 100 26 100 ll5 100 though men were more successful. The practice of allowing students to exempt advanced courses was unusual and not practiced by all faculty members, but i i: seems to have brought a much better success ratio than examinations for in- troductory courses. MALE vs. FEMALE When the exemption examination per- formances of male and female students were considered, it was found that 23 per cent of the students taking exami- nations were men, about the same as the per cent male in the student body, and that male students took an average of 1.66 examinations each, while wom- en students took an average of 1.97 each. No reason is known for this differ- ence. Men passed 44 per cent of the ex- aminations taken, while women passed TABLE 7 EXAMINATIONS TAKEN BY THE GRADUATES OF SPECIFIC UNDERGRADUATE DEPARTMENTS OF LmRARY OF SciENCE Number of Average Number of Per Cent Number of Examinations Examinations Per Examinations College Students Taken Student Passed A 12 33 2.8 36 B 9 30 3.3 57 c 5 14 2.8 14 D 5 10 2.0 50 31 87 168 I College & Research Libraries • March 1969 about the same, 48 per cent (see Table 8). Women had a higher success rate in each examination except Introduction to Cataloging and Classification, but the two examinations on which women did significantly better than men were Basic Reference and Selection of Library Ma- terials. The frequency with which men and women took the various examina- tions is remarkably similar (see Table 9) . The only examination with a vari- ance of more than five percentage points was Selection of Library Materials, which .accounted for only 8 per cent of the total number of examinations taken by men but 18 per cent of those taken by women. Wayne reported males and females at Davis to have passed their examinations with the same percentages in the only other case found in which sex was re- ported.10 WITHDRAWALS vs. GRADUATES There is some literature from both li- brary education and other fields which suggests that students who passed ex- emption tests also did unusually well scholastically in later course work. This conclusion was touched on at Drexel only remotely, and the conclusions tend- ed to confirm it in a negative direction. V.an Der Jagt and Mesner found that students who passed exemption tests at a lower college level also made better 1o Wayne, op. cit. , 308-24. TABLE 8 SuccEssFUL ExAMINATION CoMPLETION RATE FOR MEN AND WoMEN MEN WoMEN Per Cent of Per Cent of Examinations Examinations CoURsE Passed Passed Library in Society 54 59 Cataloging and Classification 27 23 Basic Reference 42 61 Selection of Library Materials 0 22 Introduction to Library Service 59 68 Advanced Courses 64 4.9 TOTAL 44 48 than average grades in upper level courses. 11 Wayne discovered at the Uni- versity of California at Davis that stu- dents who were given credit for fresh- man course work after having passed CEEB Advanced Placement Examina- tions also made better than average grades in their freshman courses.12 Al- lison and Bloom also found grades in a specific subject area on an advanced level to be better than average for those students who had passed a test in that area on a lower college level at an earlier than average time. 13 And finally, 11 E. Van Der Jagt and D. M. Mesner, "Predicta- bility of Success in College Courses b y Accelerating and Non-Accelerating Students as Measured by Scores Made b y Entering Freshmen on ACE and Cooperative Reading Tests," Science Education, XL ( October 1956 ), 327-31. 1 2 Wayne, op. cit., 308-24. 13 Allison and Bloom, op. cit., 221-33. TABLE 9 FREQUENCY WITH WmcH MEN AND WoMEN TooK EAcH EXAMINATION CoURsE Library in Society . . . Cataloging and Classification Basic Reference . Selection of Library Materials Introduction to Library Service Advanced Courses TOTAL MEN Number of Per Cent E xaminations Taken of Total 26 15 24 8 17 6 96 27 16 25 8 18 6 100 WoMEN Number of Per Cent E xaminations Taken of Total 86 66 88 68 56 21 385 29 17 23 18 14 6 100 Exemption Tests in Library Education I 169 Illinois found its students who exempt- ed core courses to have obtained better grades than average in advanced li- brary science courses.14 Sixty-one examinations ( 12 per cent) were taken by Drexel students who lat- er withdrew without completing their degree programs. This included students who failed, who were on probation, and who discontinued course work for per- sonal reasons. Among the students who withdrew, the examination success ratio was only 20 per cent as compared to the overall success rate of 48 per cent, there- by suggesting a positive correlation be- tween examination grades and gradua- tion, or between examination grades and course grades. Nevertheless, a doz- en of these students were sufficiently knowledgeable to pass exemption exam- inations so their loss to the profession was regrettable. CONCLUSIONS 1. There is some body of literature re- porting higher education experience in exemption testing, all of which is favorable to such a program and to the success of well qualified stu- dents in it and in later course work. 2. There was a sharp decline in the number of examinations taken be- tween 1962 and 1963 and the fol- lowing years. 3. There was a steady decline in the percentage of examinations passed, as they became more difficult. 14 Shearhouse, op. cit., 481-9. 4. Success rate for retests was similar to the overall success rate. 5. There was a general correlation be- tween frequency rate and success rate-the examinations most fre- quently taken were those most fre- quently passed. 6. Library in Society, Basic Reference, and Introduction to Library Service were most frequently taken and passed. 7. Students in Group D, with no pre- vious course work or library experi- ence, took the fewest examinations per person and had the highest success rate, though findings in oth- er fields were the opposite. 8. The number of students in Group D taking examinations decreased sharply each year. 9. Of four undergraduate library sci- ence departments on which evidence was available, the graduates of two scored somewhat above the overall average, and two scored significant- ly below. 10. Success percentage on advanced course exemption examinations was significantly higher than the overall coverage. 11. Women did slightly better than men on all but one examination. 12. For students who later withdrew be- fore completing graduation require- ments, the success ratio was well be- low the overall average, suggesting conformity with previous findings . ••