What Does the Scent of 1000 Assessment Flowers Smell Like?
During a meeting of officials from liberal arts colleges, associations and foundations (e.g. AAC&U and CHEA), Teagle consultant, David Paris, outlined the meeting’s goal as, “being able within the next 3-5 years to say confidently to the public and public officials we have engaged in systematic and even systemic improvement [by] harvesting … some of the 1,000 flowers” now being nurtured on individual campuses.
If enough colleges get serious about assessing student learning on their campuses, being among the “1,000 flowers” that higher education leaders say are blooming, a fruitful “competition of ideas” will emerge, argued Robert J. Thompson Jr., a professor of psychology at Duke University who is leading a joint Teagle/Spencer initiative designed to help get major research universities on the assessment train, which they have been slow to board.
A notable caution was also raised:
“My concern is that our focus on improving student learning needs to be driven by institutional mission rather than an effort to appease external audiences who may not understand our missions,” said Peter H. Quimby, deputy dean of the college at Princeton University, who expressed reservations about student learning assessment broached in the context of accountability. “When we buy into the market-oriented rhetoric of accountability, value added, and cross-institutional comparisons in order to placate others, we run the risk of making it harder to engage faculty members in conversations that are both meaningful to them and helpful to our students.”
Read the full Inside Higher Ed article (Spreading the Gospel on Student Learning) as well as add your comments to the ongoing conversation.
November 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I agree with Peter Quimby’s comments. We (those of us in assessment) need to separate assessment, accountability, and accreditation. Assessment is an internally focused process that is driven by the institutional missions, done to inform and enhance student learning as consistent with the university’s defined outcomes. Accountability is a matter of presenting a limited subset of assessment results, particularly when using one of the VSA tests, which appeases at least some external audiences. The VSA tests are not sufficiently aligned with our curriculums, nor can they rightfully be used to inform our practices that lead to improved student learning. The VSA tests are external and have little meaning to a university’s internal mission. Accreditation, of course, is somewhat dependent upon effective assessement practices and unfortunately accreditors are accepting the VSA requirements as effective assessment. Before the VSA, accreditors could have been or were strong motivators for effective assessment - the type that informs student learning, but now the use of the VSA limits that. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone or any university that cares about good assessment to rely on the VSA alone.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I agree with Peter Quimby’s comments. We (those of us in assessment) need to separate assessment, accountability, and accreditation. Assessment is an internally focused process that is driven by the institutional missions, done to inform and enhance student learning as consistent with the university’s defined outcomes. Accountability is a matter of presenting a limited subset of assessment results, particularly when using one of the VSA tests, which appeases at least some external audiences. The VSA tests are not sufficiently aligned with our curriculums, nor can they rightfully be used to inform our practices that lead to improved student learning. The VSA tests are external and have little meaning to a university’s internal mission. Accreditation, of course, is somewhat dependent upon effective assessement practices and unfortunately accreditors are accepting the VSA requirements as effective assessment. Before the VSA, accreditors could have been or were strong motivators for effective assessment - the type that informs student learning, but now the use of the VSA limits that. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone or any university that cares about good assessment to rely on the VSA alone.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Hi there,
Ugh, I liked!
Thank you
AnnaHopn