Online assessment of athletic training education outcomes and program satisfaction

This paper describes the development of the Online Assessment of Athletic Training Education system (OAATE), a tool for assessing student achievement in the knowledge domains necessary for certification as an athletic trainer. The system also assesses students' satisfaction with important dimensions of their individual degree programs. By making use of current database and communication technologies, we have developed a system that addresses important, unmet needs in the field of Athletic Training education. The design of the system makes it a dynamic, easily extensible tool that could be applied in a wide variety of education domains beyond its current setting. In addition, because of its Internet-based delivery system, the tool may be widely-used throughout the world, with benefits accruing to students, program instructors and administrators, and researchers in the field of education.