Raising the Stakes on a Political Science Major Field Test: Evidence from a New Capstone Course

Using a major field test (MFT) is a common method of program assessment. For accurate assessment to take place, however, students must be sufficiently motivated to perform. This paper studies a change in major requirements that associates a major field test to a grade in a capstone course, when it previously counted for nothing. After controlling for possibly confounding factors, a modest but robust treatment effect was found. Adding stakes also appears to cause MFT scores to correlate more strongly with other measures of student learning, which suggests more accurate assessment.