Assessment and Quality: The Never-ending Challenge
Higher education has relied on assessments of learning for generations. The SAT, ACT, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT and GRE ostensibly test fitness for study. Licensure exam results in fields such as nursing, law and accounting are touted as a way to assess the quality of institutions. Programmatic accreditors expect external validation of learning (e.g., Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs and ABET). The U.S. Department of Education continues to add outcomes to the College Scorecard to improve students’ insight into quality. More and more states’ higher education funding formulas focus on outcomes. Since at least the early 1990s, accreditors have been expecting assessment of student learning as a condition of accreditation.
