Ensuring Educational Quality Means Assessing Learning

Abstract

As many experienced board members know, given the national debate in recent years over institutional accountability, learning--the heart of the educational enterprise--is often treated as a by-product of other more measurable processes. The fact is, no matter how excellent the curricula, no matter how stellar the faculty, no matter how talented the student body, without assessing student learning outcomes, there's no reliable way to measure and demonstrate educational quality. Over the past two years, the Educational Testing Service has developed a framework for helping colleges and universities define aspirations for student learning and translate them into measurable outcomes through a series of white papers called "A Culture of Evidence." In the first paper, the authors look at the consequences for prospective students, employers, and institutions of not having a systematic approach to collecting evidence about student learning. In the second paper, the authors focus on what is currently available to assess these areas, and in the third paper, they proposed a method for helping an institution create a culture of evidence on its campus.