What are Colleges Doing about Student Assessment?

Abstract

Introduction An increasing number of colleges and universities have engaged in some form of student assessment activity over the past decade (El-Khawas, 1988, 1990, 1995). Administrators and faculty have invested considerable time and effort in promoting, supporting, and implementing these assessment efforts. Yet concerns have been raised that assessment activities are difficult to mount successfully (Ewell, 1988a; Gray & Banta, 1997) and seldom produce discernible impacts on students' or institutions' performance (Astin, 1991; Ratcliff & Associates, 1995). Student assessment, particularly scholarship taking an institutional perspective, is an emerging arena of study in higher education. A rich prescriptive literature exists. Scholars and practitioners have produced many books and monographs that offer guidelines for how institutions might best approach and support their student assessment efforts (cf. Banta & Associates, 1993; Banta, Lund, Black, & Oblander, 1996; Rossman & El-Khawas, 1987; Sims, 1992). Less available is nationally representative empirical evidence concerning how institutions have conducted student assessment and to what effect. Studies have collected descriptive data regarding the content and methods of institutions' assessment approaches (Cowart, 1990; Ory & Parker, 1989; Steele & Lutz, 1995). But there has been little systematic examination of organizational and administrative patterns at the institutional level developed to support student assessment efforts (Ewell, 1997; Johnson, Prus, Andersen, & El-Khawas, 1991) or how institutions have used and been affected by assessment information (Banta et al., 1996; Ewell, 1988b; Gray & Banta, 1997). The purpose of our study was to extend current understanding of how postsecondary institutions have approached, supported, and promoted undergraduate student assessment, and the institutional uses and impacts that have been realized from these assessment efforts. In addition, we were interested in examining the congruence between institutional approaches to student assessment found in the prescriptive literature and actual institutional practices. Review of the Related Literature We began our research by conducting an extensive review of the literature on student assessment in postsecondary institutions. Details of this literature review and its results are available elsewhere (see Peterson & Einarson, 2000; Peterson, Einarson, Trice, & Nichols, 1997). For this study, we focused on the following conceptual domains: (1) the relationship of institutional context to student assessment;(2) institutional approaches to student assessement; (3) organizational and administrative support for student assessment;(4) assessment management policies and practices; and (5) institutional uses and impacts of student assessment information. Our review considered prescriptive literature offering recommendations for institutions embarking on student assessment and empirical literature providing evidence of institutional practices and consequences with respect to student assessment. Findings from the literature review are summarized below. Institutional Context The literature suggests that variations in the student assessment practices observed across postsecondary institutions are related to differences in broad characteristics of institutional context. Differences by institutional type have been observed in the content and methods of student assessment approaches (Johnson, Dasher-Alston, Ratteray, & Kait, 1991; Steele & Lutz, 1995; Steele, Malone & Lutz, 1997). Fewer studies have found differences in forms of organizational and administrative support for student assessment by institutional type (Patton, Dasher-Alston, Ratteray, & Kait, 1996), control (Johnson et al., 1991) and size (Woodard, Hyman, von Destinon, & Jamison, 1991). These findings suggest that patterns of assessment management policies and practices and institutional uses and impacts from assessment may also differ by institutional type, control, and size. …