Evaluating Principal Preparation Candidate Competence Using Medical School Methodology 107
the classroom is generally tied to performance on examinations, projects, and research papers.
Candidates who perform well on these kinds of assessments are not always the ones who do
best on the job. Assessments tied more closely with the authentic
school settings, issues, and challenges have the potential to produce outcomes that are more
closely related to the actual performance candidates will exhibit on the job.
Preparation programs face the problem of how to change from their current assessment
methodology to a more authentic assessment methodology. This paper will address one way
in which that transition has been made.
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT
Assessment center methodology is grounded in a set of essential skills, authentic
situations, and the analysis of skill based on data and observation. Assessment center
methodology has been used in a variety of settings including the military, business, law
enforcement and education. The origin of the assessment center concept has been traced to Sir
Frances Galton who used assessment-type methodology in the late 19th century (Williamson
& Schaalman, 1980). More recent assessment-center applications can be traced to the 1930s.
Modern assessment center methodology was developed at Harvard University by Murray and
in Germany by Simoneit. The British War Office Selection Board adopted Simoneit’s
methods to select army officers. With its entry into World War II, the United States
government used assessment center methodology when the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
used theories from the Harvard studies and the assessment experiences of the Germans and
the British to create an assessment center. In the 1950s, the business community discovered
assessment methodology and began to use assessments. One of the most documented uses of
assessment-center methodology was the 30-year study of management conducted at American
Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Dr. Douglas Bray used assessment centers to track the
development of AT&T managers (Sirotnik & Durden, 1998). Currently, assessment centers
are being conducted by industries around the world for the selection and development of
managers and executives.
The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), with the assistance of
the American Psychological Association, developed an assessment center for the selection of
school leaders in 1975. The NASSP assessment center has become the most well known
assessment system for school administrators (Sirotnik & Durden, 1998).
During the 1980s and 1990s the NASSP worked with four universities through the
Danforth Foundation to integrate candidate leadership skill assessment into their programs.
Because of difficulties created by material costs and the need for additional labor, these
efforts were short lived. Although the labor intensive nature and expense of using assessment-
center methodology in the higher education setting is well documented (Hoyle, English, &
Steffy, 1998), the benefits of providing assessment feedback to students about to enter an
internship and the increasing calls for linking preparation with job-like experiences fueled
continuing efforts to find reasonable ways to use assessment-center methodology. Faculty
members at several universities have, therefore, continued to search for ways in which
assessment data can be provided to students, can be used to respond to accreditation
expectations, and can provide data to document student proficiency.
In 1998, the East Carolina University (ECU) Department of Educational Leadership
(LEED) engaged in discussions with NASSP regarding the use of one of its assessment
programs and entered into an agreement to redesign NASSP’s Developmental Assessment
Center (DAC) as a self-assessment program for use in preparation programs. DAC was