Credit Level

Lower – Introductory – Freshman/Sophomore Level Credit

Lower-level credit is recommended for knowledge that you’ve gained and are able to apply.  For example, if you’re a manager, you might understand basic management techniques, choose specific techniques to apply in specific situations, and explain why you used a certain approach.

Here’s a recap of the characteristics for lower-level Applied Knowledge from the Global Learning Qualifications Framework :

• applies relevant concepts and theories within particular contexts
• applies technical and professional knowledge in the analysis and resolution of practical issues
• analyzes and interprets theoretical, technical, and research information and applies it to specific situations
• investigates, evaluates, and responds to defined or routine problems drawing on relevant theoretical and practical knowledge

Upper – Advanced – Junior/Senior Level Credit

Upper-level credit is recommended for knowledge that you can manipulate more abstractly.  For example, in addition to the lower-level characteristics, you can also compare different management techniques in the abstract, evaluate their usefulness in hypothetical situations, and even develop your own techniques.

Here’s a recap of the characteristics for upper-level Applied Knowledge from the Global Learning Qualifications Framework:

• applies theoretical knowledge and practical experience when investigating, solving, and/or preventing complex issues or problems, using multiple methods and sources of information
• develops and evaluates new solutions in tactical, strategic, and creative ways
• manages processes in unfamiliar and changing contexts, recognizing that the application of strategies and/or problems solving is situational

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Consider Level of Learning

Lower- and upper-level credit can be related to Bloom’s revised taxonomy.

• Lower-level

  • Remember: Recall facts and basic concepts
  • Understand: Explain ideas or concepts
  • Apply: Use information in new situations

• Upper-level

  • Analyze: Draw connections among ideas
  • Evaluate: Justify a stand or decision
  • Create: Produce new or original work

Using iPLA Guides to Consider Level of Learning

And here’s yet another way to consider lower vs. upper-level learning, with specific examples from the iPLA Guides.

Introductory college-level learning (freshman/sophomore) means that you understand:

• Basic concepts, theories, and principles of a topic.

Advanced college-level learning (junior/senior level) means that you understand the topic more broadly and deeply.  You may understand:

• What the broader field is about, based on your experience.
• Why something is done in a certain way.
• What you, yourself, think about the topic or field, as a result of blending others’ perspectives with your own understanding and judgment.
• How to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information more abstractly, applying methods usually used in that field.

Credit Type: Liberal or Applied?

Learning in the classroom is often very “theory based” while learning on the job is often very applied. The focus of most college degrees is half theory/half applied (which is what the B.S. degree requires). Whitaker states:

A common test is whether the learning is transferable to other contexts than that of the specific learning environment. For example, does the intern in an accounting firm (or a prior learner with “x” years of experience in the firm) know how to balance the books in only one firm, or only when a particular brand of computer is being used? Or does the learner know enough about the process of balancing the books to use alternative equipment, or to move into another firm handling different accounts?”

If the knowledge is very context-specific, then it may not yield liberal credit, which assumes more understanding of underlying theory. Here’s a very general “test” you might apply. Knowledge that receives liberal credit answers abstract type questions (e.g., what insight about the human condition does this novel offer?). Applied knowledge deals with problem solving and answers “how to?” questions (e.g., how do I proceed for accounts payable?). Here’s another example. Knowledge of psychology deals with what it is to be human (abstract). Knowledge of crisis intervention deals with specific techniques in helping humans (how-to).

Content on this page is based on Assessing Learning by Bernard Smith.

Credit Amount

How many credits might some learning be worth?

This is not always easy for students to consider. You may have been working in the accounts payable department of your company for 10 years. You can do the job with your eyes shut.  That’s got to be worth something.  Right?  Ten credits, fifteen?

There are several ways of “guestimating” the number of credits you can reasonably request.  But before we explore these the first question is: Why is it important for you to consider this issue at all?  Why not leave it up to the people who will be doing the evaluation?  Actually, it is important to have some idea of the plausible number of credits you might request for several reasons:

1. Prior learning assessment is about validating past learning.  Your educational career will involve a significant portion of new learning.  Having a sense of what’s involved in 4 credits of knowledge, for example, at either a freshman/sophomore or junior/senior level, will help you gauge how much work you’ll need to do to complete 4 credits of course work.
2. PLA at Empire State College is not a way of simply packing your degree with credits.  Faculty will review each credit for appropriateness in your degree plan. It’s useful to have some idea of the likely number of credits you might receive for your knowledge of nutrition or human services management or Spanish, if you are going to include these credits in your proposed degree plan. For example, if you’re planning on 12 advanced-level credits of prior learning in Marketing and the more realistic and plausible number is 4 lower-level credits, you’ll need to consider more advanced-level credits of course work to meet degree requirements.

So how do you reasonably estimate credit amounts to request for your prior learning?  Janet Colvin, in Earn College Credit for What You Know, discusses different methods (pgs. 115-123), which include the following:

College Catalog/Course Method

Check college catalogs and/or the syllabus of a particular course/s.  If you feel your prior learning covers all the material covered by the course, then request the same number of credits.  Some things to consider:

• Check many college catalogs to see if credit is offered in the area of your learning, and how much credit a course usually has in that area.  For example, John Jay College offers credits in Forensic Photography.  In your work as a police officer, you have learned how to take photographs at crime scenes.  You understand the types of shots that might be required for different crimes, e.g., traffic accidents, break-ins, assaults.  If John Jay College offers 4 upper-level credits and you have essentially the same knowledge (and all the prerequisite knowledge), then it might be reasonable for you to request 4 upper-level credits.

• Frequently, students may not have gained mastery of everything in the course syllabus.  Gaps typically exist in the area of theory.  To put this another way, you may have seen every British horror movie of the 1960s and know a considerable amount about the genre, but may not have considered the reasons why horror films were so popular during that decade, or may not know the body of a particular director’s work.
• The world of work often allows you to acquire competencies in areas not typically included in a course syllabus.  For example, a course syllabus may cover A, B, C, D, and E, but you have real mastery of A, B, C, F, and G.  Decide if your additional knowledge compensates for any gaps.  The gaps exist, and they may be viewed as important to address in terms of your overall degree, but the additional learning you have may still allow you to legitimately request the same number of credits offered by the course.
• You may think that if you have been involved in the area for 5-6 years you will have gained greater mastery of the material.  But  are you thinking about experience or the knowledge gained from that experience?  Do you in fact have more knowledge or simply more experience with the same knowledge?

Carnegie Formula

This method is a little different.  ESC’s criterion is that, in order to pursue credit, your learning must be college level (as opposed to being taught somewhere in a course). The idea here is that you “break out” your learning into identifiable, creditable components. The Carnegie formula offers a reasonable method to attach credit to these components:

• 160 hours of learning = 3-4 credits

E.g., if you did training at work that lasted one week (40 hours), it would equal 1 credit, assuming that the course resulted in college-level learning.

Above content  is based on Assessing Learning by Bernard Smith.

Tips for Calculating Credit Amounts

Content from Nan Travers

It’s best not to submit large blocks of credit because it doesn’t provide enough information about what you know. You want to think about how to separate these areas into distinct topics. For example, your knowledge in designing enterprise systems is a different type of knowledge than supporting these systems. Management of staff, which also may relate to designing enterprise systems, is also very different learning.

The standard used for calculating credits when any college creates a course is the Carnegie Unit. 1 Unit (credit) = 1 hr of instruction per week + 2 hrs of outside work per week X 15 weeks. The biggest argument against this rule is that it doesn’t provide any information on how to judge the type of learning or the depth and breadth of learning that takes place. When you are trying to assess learning and convert to credit equivalencies – this rule doesn’t make sense. So how do you figure credits out?

I suggest that you make some lists of what you know. Then cluster and theme those together under titles that match the types of learning. You can also use the worksheet that we have provided in this section.

Another way to consider credit amount is to consider teaching your knowledge to another person: What would you teach? How could you break this into lessons?  How long would it take to teach these lessons?

You do not have to assign credits right at the beginning. Take time to write out your knowledge first; that way you will have better  information about the extent of knowledge and how that can be expressed in credits.

Most courses at SUNY ESC are 4 credits, but your requests can be less (some students request 1, 2, and 3 credits). Some students request more, but 4 is very typical. Once you get up to about 6 credits, it is better to break the request apart into more distinct learning. The exception to this is when the request is for field experience; sometimes these requests come in at more than 4 credits.  However, if the request is 8 credits or more, even though that is not common, consider breaking the field experiences into Field Experience I and II.