PDQ is the sole property of Educational Testing Service (ETS). This instrument assesses adults’ performance on real-world tasks in six contents:

PDQ is adaptive. Adaptive tests are customized for each test taker. Depending on the test taker’s response to the first question, the computer selects a slightly more difficult question if the first question is answered correctly. Conversely, it selects a slightly less difficult question if the first question is answered incorrectly (Educational Testing Services).

TOWES is sole property of Bow Valley College located in Calgary, Alberta. TOWES is a nationally accepted, competency-based workplace assessment which is distributed through community colleges. Twenty-one colleges in Ontario are TOWES distributors. Both paper and on-line tests are available. Different versions are available to address complexity levels (Bow Valley College, 2008).

See Appendix I for a chart comparing features of both instruments.

Testing the Tests

Initially the Project Team was expected to make decisions about the suitability of PDQ or TOWES for pre- and post testing. No provision had been made to field-test the instruments, however, and the team was not prepared to endorse the instruments without trying them out. The ideal situation would have been to field-test TOWES and PDQ in the manner in which they might eventually be used, i.e., as pre- and post-tests. However, the paths were not at a point of development where this was feasible.

Members of the team each applied for additional funding to field-test the instruments. Delays in receiving the funding meant that the field tests had to be conducted within a few months. This short time frame allowed for exploratory approaches with relatively small samples of learners. It was understood that the results would not be conclusive and that further field testing would be required to determine the broader utility of TOWES and PDQ for measuring learning gains.