What is MUST?

[LibbyPhillips]

Diana Mason, who developed the Math Up Skills Test (MUST) for general chemistry, drew inspiration from a journal by Hartman and Nelson, detailing a study in which a group of students was given a baseline assessment with or without a calculator. Interestingly, without a calculator was a better predictor of success.

An accomplished chemical education researcher, Diana brought this idea to the state of Texas and created the MUST. In her own IRB-approved study, Diana compared the test results to students’ final grades at universities and colleges across the state.

What she found was that student performance on this fifteen minute, twenty question assessment, given in the first week of class, showed a significant correlation between student performance in Gen Chem I and Gen Chem II.

Watch the video below to hear more about Diana’s story in creating the MUST.