MEASURING LEARNING OUTCOMES IN HIGHER EDUCATION USING THE MEASURE OF ACADEMIC PROFICIENCY AND PROGRESS (MAPP)

Abstract

The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education emphasizes accountability in higher education as one of the key areas of interest. The Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) was developed to evaluate the effectiveness of general public college education. This study examines how student progress in college, indicated by the performance difference between freshmen and seniors after controlling for admission scores, can be measured using the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) test. A total of 6,196 students from 23 institutions were included in this study. Results indicated that MAPP was able to differentiate the performance between freshmen and seniors after controlling for SAT®/ACT scores. The institutions were classified into 10 groups on the basis of the difference in the actual vs. expected MAPP performance. This study provides an example of how MAPP can be used to evaluate value-added performance in college education. Issues such as student sampling and test-taking motivation are discussed.