The assessment movement in higher education began in 1985 with the convergence of two forces: an internal force from faculty members (primarily in the social sciences and in education) who were looking to improve what they saw as a weak system, and an external force from leaders in state governments (many steeped in business and management) who were looking to establish clear standards for performance in colleges and universities (institutional accountability) in the wake of K-12 reform initiatives.  Assessment experts tell us that without the second force, the assessment movement would not have spread beyond the few institutions where it originated.

Public colleges and universities, accountable to state government, were the first to feel the pressure.  Over time, the duty of checking institutional accountability was transferred from states to the regional accrediting bodies (such as Middle States), which widened the attention to private institutions as well as public ones.  At first the focus was on resources and institutional management (things like library holdings, student retention rates).  Only in the last ten years or so have accreditors been asking higher education institutions to show that they assess student learning outcomes.

The fact that the lines are blurred between assessment and accountability has not helped to win faculty support for assessment.  Accountability has some negative connotations for faculty (e.g. higher education as a consumer product subject to "quality control").

"The language now being adopted by accreditors emphasizes standards for learning.... (Assessment) must focus... on constructing assignments and exercises that are built directly into the curriculum, designed to do double duty in judging individual student performance and generating aggregate data about institutional performance.... Rather than the existence of "assessment" as a process being advanced as evidence of accountability, the alignment of the institution's actual teaching and learning with the established standards of performance on regular assignments becomes the stuff of accountability" (Peter T. Ewell).

Now that accreditors have some experience themselves with assessment, they understand the obstacles to its implementation and are giving institutions of higher education better guidelines to follow, and more freedom to choose assessment methods that fit the local "culture."

As a Program Coordinator, I spend a lot of time thinking about improving the curriculum.  New programs are expected to have problems--  the Forensic Science program is only four years old, and needs adjustment.  Two of the program's goals and objectives are:

• Graduates will possess broad knowledge in all of the disciplines and sub-disciplines that regularly contribute to new ideas in the field.
• Graduates will use algebraic, trigonometric, and statistical methods to solve problems in the sciences and to communicate scientific information.

As I gather outcomes evidence, and evaluate the outcomes against my own and my department's expectations, I can make decisions about change-- but I'm not trying to assess everything at once.  Here's an example: I have observed that even the best forensic science students in the junior-level professional course can't readily remember or make use of physics, taught to them as sophomores, in their forensic science research papers and presentations (it goes without saying that good grades in physics do not guarantee that learning has taken place).  These papers and presentations are the primary assessment "instruments" in the program (they're the closest thing to a "capstone" that we have).  In response to the deficiency, I've made some small additions to the physics course.  I'll let you know how it goes!

These are daunting tasks for those of us who are new to assessment of student learning outcomes.  Best advice: find a faculty mentor you can be comfortable with.  There are many faculty members at Sage with assessment experience.