Assessment Disconnect

January 27, 2010 — Inside Higher Education

At recent national conferences of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) and Council for Higher Education Accreditations (CHEA), the perceived results are mixed regarding the effectiveness of assessment programs across the United States. While you could attend meetings extolling the efforts of faculty, departments, and institutions regarding assessment, you more than likely could step to the next room and hearing questioning about how committed higher education institutions are regarding assessment.

The report refers to former Education Secretary Margaret Spelling and the Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the resulting push for the Bush administration to install measures to compare efficiency of colleges on a national level. While the effort failed, there was a resulting increase by accreditation agencies to nudge colleges in this direction.

Recent slowdown in assessment traction may be attributed to the Obama administration’s focus change in the areas of access and completion. But Inside Higher Education notes the Obama administration is in support of developing databases to enable better data gathering about student progress.

One of the underlying precepts of the article was the Bush administration’s strategy of pushing assessment over standards adherence was “ill-advised”. This was an interesting observation for me as I delve deeper into understanding assessment practices, I have come to the conclusion if programs and institutions concentrate on meeting standards first, much of the desired assessment practice should become an easier process to implement.

Is assessment more difficult for universities than two-year institutions based on trade/technical training? Associate trade programs typically already have well-defined standards that drive curriculum with advisory boards striving to ensure programs are training students in standards and practices driven by industry. Is general education assessment the underlying issue? For years we have touted the inherent value of a well-rounded general education. This is a concept that appears to be much more difficult to measure than industry driven program standards. Once again I have no answers, just more questions.

Pete