Assessment in higher education has evolved from a peripheral institutional function to a central leadership responsibility. Accreditors, governing boards, legislators, and the public demand evidence that higher education institutions achieve their stated learning outcomes and fulfill their educational missions. ED7547 develops the doctoral-level expertise to design, lead, and use assessment systems that simultaneously satisfy external accountability demands and generate genuinely useful information for internal improvement.
The rationale for assessment in higher education
Understanding why assessment has become central to institutional leadership
- The accountability movement: ED7547 traces the development of the assessment movement in higher education — from the 1984 NIE Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in Higher Education ("Involvement in Learning") through the 1990s regional accreditor shift to outcomes-based accountability, to the 2006 Spellings Commission and the ongoing demands for institutional transparency embodied in systems like the College Scorecard. Understanding this history helps leaders contextualize current assessment demands and anticipate how accountability expectations will continue to evolve
- Beyond compliance to improvement: ED7547 distinguishes between assessment for accountability (demonstrating to external stakeholders that the institution achieves its goals) and assessment for improvement (generating information that enables institutions, programs, and faculty to improve their educational effectiveness). The course develops the capacity to design assessment systems that serve both purposes — not treating them as competing but recognizing that genuine improvement evidence is also the most compelling accountability evidence
- The scholarly basis for assessment: The course develops the theoretical foundation for higher education assessment in learning theory (what do we know about how students learn, and how does this inform what and how we assess?), measurement theory (what makes an assessment valid, reliable, and fair?), and organizational learning theory (how do institutions develop the capacity to use assessment evidence for genuine improvement rather than merely generating data that sits in reports?)
Assessment methods for higher education contexts
ED7547 examines the range of assessment methods available to higher education institutions and the considerations that guide method selection. At the course level, the course covers the design of course-embedded assessments that generate evidence of student learning aligned with program learning outcomes — moving beyond grades (which conflate many factors) to direct measures of specific competencies. At the program level, the course covers curriculum mapping (aligning course-level learning activities with program learning outcomes and identifying where in the curriculum each outcome is introduced, reinforced, and assessed), capstone assessments (senior projects, theses, portfolios, comprehensive exams, and other culminating experiences that generate integrative evidence of program-level learning), and embedded signature assessments (standardized assessment tasks embedded in program courses that allow systematic collection of evidence about program outcomes). At the institutional level, the course covers general education assessment (how institutions assess the broad outcomes of liberal education that cut across programs), co-curricular and experiential learning assessment, alumni surveys, and longitudinal tracking of graduate outcomes. The course also covers indirect measures (student satisfaction surveys, self-reported learning gains, employer feedback) and the appropriate role of these measures alongside direct assessment evidence.
Building an assessment culture
ED7547 addresses the organizational challenge that consumes most assessment leaders' time and energy: building a campus culture in which faculty and staff genuinely engage with assessment rather than treating it as a compliance burden. The course examines the barriers to authentic assessment engagement (faculty skepticism about the value of assessment, concerns about academic freedom and curricular autonomy, distrust of how assessment data will be used, time pressures, and lack of assessment expertise), and develops strategies for overcoming them. These strategies include assessment leadership approaches (building faculty ownership of assessment through involvement in design, implementation, and use of findings; positioning assessment as scholarly inquiry into student learning rather than administrative surveillance; creating safe spaces for programs to engage honestly with evidence of areas where student learning falls short), organizational structures that support assessment (assessment committees with genuine faculty ownership, assessment liaisons in academic programs, institutional assessment offices that serve as resources rather than police, and learning management systems that facilitate systematic data collection), and professional development that builds faculty assessment capacity.
Using assessment findings for improvement
ED7547 develops the capacity to close the assessment loop — using assessment evidence to make informed changes to curriculum, instruction, and program design. The course covers the assessment cycle (define outcomes → design and implement curriculum → assess outcomes → analyze and interpret evidence → use evidence for improvement → reassess to evaluate impact of changes) and the organizational processes needed to make this cycle function in practice. This includes faculty inquiry processes that engage instructors in examining assessment evidence and drawing pedagogical conclusions, program review processes that incorporate assessment evidence into broader program improvement planning, curriculum revision processes that translate assessment findings into specific changes to learning objectives, course content, pedagogical approaches, and assessment designs, and reporting systems that document assessment activities and improvement actions in ways that satisfy accreditor documentation requirements while remaining accessible and useful to faculty and administrators.
ED7547 assignments include assessment plan designs, accreditation analyses, culture-building strategies, and improvement-cycle case studies
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Frequently asked questions
Regional accreditors have moved steadily toward outcomes-based assessment over the past three decades, and ED7547 develops the deep understanding of accreditor expectations needed to build assessment systems that genuinely satisfy them. The seven regional accreditors (HLC, SACSCOC, MSCHE, NECHE, NWCCU, WSCUC, and ACCJC) share a common set of expectations even though their specific standards differ. First, they expect institutions to have clearly defined and publicly stated learning outcomes at the institution, program, and course levels — outcomes that are specific enough to be measurable and reflect the genuine aspirations of the program. Generic outcomes like "students will think critically" do not satisfy this requirement; specific, discipline-informed outcomes that describe what critical thinking looks like in a particular field do. Second, they expect institutions to assess student achievement of these outcomes through direct measures — not just satisfaction surveys or graduation rates, but evidence that students actually acquired the knowledge, skills, and dispositions the program claims to develop. Third, they expect institutions to use assessment findings to make improvements — the "closing the loop" documentation that shows what was done with assessment evidence is often the most carefully scrutinized component of accreditation reviews. Fourth, they expect assessment to be faculty-led, sustainable, and embedded in institutional culture — not a centrally managed compliance exercise that produces reports without faculty engagement. Finally, accreditors distinguish between compliance reporting (institutions that collect assessment data to satisfy accreditors) and authentic assessment practice (institutions that use assessment for genuine improvement) — and they have become increasingly sophisticated at detecting the former while rewarding the latter.