NUTSHELL NOTES

The assessment of our students' learning begins with our own educational values. Only these can determine our choices for what and how we assess.

Assessment of any course, program, or other educational unit can proceed only after purposes of the course, program, etc., have been explicitly defined in writing. Gathering data first and deciding purposes second equals much work for little return.

Assessment requires more than measures of results. It also requires an evaluation of the processes that lead to the results, and a reflection upon why particular processes were chosen.

Reporting information in response to a mandate is not assessment. Assessment is to such reporting as automobile maintenance is to roadside breakdowns. True assessment is an ongoing process that is a regular part of instruction.

The best assessments result from collaborative study, with the review and suggestions coming from a broad base. Our courses ultimately come together to serve a department's clientele, a college's role, and a university's mission. Being certain that we are indeed serving as we intend involves review from people with different perspectives. One caution: "review" is not hierarchical, top-down micro-management. Distributed ownership of responsibility is required for success.

Assessment should focus on the issues that users of the data most care about. What is important should be agreed upon at all levels of review before data is gathered. Few things destroy assessment so thoroughly as playing the shell game with issue priorities. If managers state that an
issue is of primary importance, then it had better remain the key issue when the data gathered in assessment are used for those managers' policy decisions.

What is done with results determines whether assessment will be incorporated into the institutional culture or discarded. Assessment will be successful when it is part of a commitment, from bottom to top, to promote change for the better. Improving the quality of students' learning must be an action-issue for planning, budgeting and personnel decisions, so that faculty can realize that results justify their labor. When student-credit-hours-generation is the only game in town that determines real policy, and assessment results are not used to produce any substantial change, faculty are quick to realize when their valuable time is being consumed to no purpose in a mere charade dubbed "assessment."

Assessment aims to present an accurate picture of learning. Learning is a complex process, so assessment may allow for diverse methods, but ultimately the most powerful evidence of successful student learning is that which demonstrates change for the better in accord with well-defined goals.

Through assessment, educators demonstrate commitment to continued improvement in order to serve students in the best possible ways. In turn, those to whom educators are accountable have an obligation to really support educators' efforts toward improvement. Both educators and those to whom they are accountable are ultimately responsible to the public.

This newsletter is based upon results from many workers, as organized in T. W. Banta and others, 1996, Assessment in Practice: San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Pub., 387 p.