Books available through the Office of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness

The Space Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight

Adelman

This essay seeks to answer four questions about data we use every day in comparing higher education in the United States with that in other countries, particularly the 30 advanced post-industrial democracies, including the United States, that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Core Indicators of Effectiveness for Community Colleges

Alfred, Ewell, and McClenney

Today’s competitive environment requires community colleges to deliver increased value and measure meaningful performance. However, many colleges lack the resources, technology, or capability required to produce credible data that documents both student and institutional performance. This leaves colleges vulnerable to questions about performance on traditional measures of student success. Use this resource to find new ways to pinpoint and measure effectiveness for completion.

Assessing General Education Programs

Allen

General education is the core of the undergraduate experience. It provides a lasting foundation for students’ future academic, civil, cultural, economic, and social lives. Additionally, as part of most general education curricula, general education as well as first-year experience programs are becoming virtually universal in colleges and universities; first-year seminars often are integrated into general education programs to promote student retention, engagement, and success. The assessment of these institution-wide efforts is particularly challenging, but many campuses have made substantial progress from which we can learn.

Written for college and university administrators, assessment officers, faculty, and staff who support general education and first-year experience programs, this book is a hands-on guide for developing, aligning, and assessing general education programs in meaningful, manageable, and sustainable ways. The author presents a variety of approaches and dozens of examples to help readers understand what other campuses are doing and develop a repertoire of their own methods so they can make informed decisions about their programs.

Benchmarking in Higher Education: Adapting Best Practices to Improve Quality

Alstete

Benchmarking is a systematic process for evaluating work processes and recognizing the most efficient practices. This report explores the literature on benchmarking in higher education and discusses its components as a tool for quality improvement.

Student Assessment-As-Learning at Alverno College

Alverno

Based on the practice of Alverno College faculty and staff since 1973, this book explicates their theory of assessment for student learning. The book includes specific examples of assessment instruments. While published in the mid-nineties, this book has retained its relevance over time as a key resource for those desiring an understanding of the Alverno College curriculum

Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning

American Association for Higher Education

The AAHE principles and comments on each, as presented by Banta, Lund, Black, and Oblander,1996.

Reinventing Undergraduate Education: Engaging College Students in Research and Creative Activities

American Association for Higher Education

Engaging undergraduate students in research and creative activities has been advocated as an innovative strategy to promote student learning in higher education. This monograph systematically synthesizes the literature to provide both conceptual and empirical evidence to demonstrate the effects of such engagement on student learning and development from higher education.

Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers

Angelo and Cross

This revised and greatly expanded edition of the1988 handbook offers teachers at all levels how-to advise on classroom assessment, including: what classroom assessment entails and how it works; how to plan, implement, and analyze assessment project; twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects; fifty classroom assessment techniques; step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques; practical advice on how to analyze your data

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

 Arum and Roksa

In spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor's degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they're born. 

Almost everyone strives to go, but almost no one asks the fundamental question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates really learning anything once they get there? For a large proportion of students, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's answer to that question is a definitive "no."

Academically Adrift holds sobering lessons for students, faculty, administrators, policy makers, and parents - all of whom are implicated in promoting or at least ignoring contemporary campus culture. Higher education faces crises on a number of fronts, but Arum and Roksa's report that colleges are failing at their most basic mission will demand the attention of us all.

Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year. According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, forty-five percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills - including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing - during their first two years of college. As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise - instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list. 

Improving Quality in American Higher Education: Learning Outcomes for the 21st Century

Arum, Roksa and Cook

Improving Quality in American Higher Education addresses common concerns head-on, and offers compelling reasons why faculty should find productive ways to engage with assessment, not only in their own classrooms, but also in their departments and beyond.

Assessing Student Learning: Peer Review Single Issue (Vol.9 No. 2)

Association of American Colleges and Universities

 As campuses implement more complex assignments, community placements, internships, student research programs, and other engaged learning practices, the opportunity for students to demonstrate complex capacities will be increased. This issue addresses a variety of approaches to achieving and assessing the advanced learning outcomes derived from these practices. It includes a special focus on developing and accessing capstone courses.

Civic Engagement and Student Success: A Resonant Relationship Civic Engagement and Student Success: A Resonant Relationship

Association of American Colleges and Universities

This issue of Diversity & Democracy highlights current research on the connections between civic engagement and student success, defined broadly across a range of outcomes. It shares civically engaged programs and related educational strategies that yield student success by a variety of measures.

Liberal Education Outcomes: A Preliminary Report on Student Achievement in College

Association of American Colleges and Universities

 This report on liberal education outcomes provides a wide-ranging and thought-provoking overview of student achievement in college. It examines a set of outcomes that are highly prized both by the academy and by employers, which include critical thinking, quantitative literacy, communication skills, ethical reasoning, and civic engagement. Drawing together research from diverse sources and studies, this report examines what we know—and how much we still need to find out—about student achievement on these and other important learning outcomes across the several years of college

Liberal Education: The Completion Agenda

Association of American Colleges and Universities

This issue presents several perspectives on the ongoing national efforts to increase college completion rates, focusing in particular on the potential negative unintended consequences for educational quality. Other topics include successful models of change for STEM reform, program-level assessment, the development of liberal education outcomes at America's service academies, outcomes of global learning, school-college collaboration, and the uses of mobile technology.

Liberal Education: What Do Employers Want from College Graduates?

Association of American Colleges and Universities

This issue presents the findings from a new national survey of employer priorities for college learning and student success, along with the text of a new compact through which employers and leaders of higher education institutions have pledged to make common cause in behalf of the quality of college learning; additional context for both is supplied by a pair of articles on what graduates need to succeed, in life and work, over the long term. Also included are articles on how American education must change in order to meet twenty-first-century imperatives, on how students define success in college, on ways to achieve greater transparency in teaching and ways to encourage greater self-examination and reflection among students, and on a contemporary decline of empathy.

More Reasons to Hope : Diversity Matters in Higher Education

Association of American Colleges and Universities

Honoring the late Edgar Beckham and his profound influence on higher education, More Reasons for Hope examines the trends in diversity education since an earlier AAC&U monograph published a decade ago called Reasons for Hope. The monograph features a major address by Edgar Beckham that identifies intellectual, structural, and political challenges that need to be addressed in the next generation of diversity work. It charts progress and setbacks and includes more than thirty current exemplary campus diversity programs, policies, and practices from across the country.

Peer Review Spring 2013: Models for Student Success - Developing a Community College Student Roadmap

Association of American Colleges and Universities

This issue highlights lessons learned from Developing Community College Student Roadmap, the LEAP project designed to assist community colleges in creating robust and proactive programs of academic support. These programs-tied to expected learning outcomes-engage students at entrance and teach them how to become active partners in their own quest for educational success

peerReview: Capstones and Integrative Learning

Association of American Colleges and Universities

Senior capstones and other culminating experiences require students nearing the end of their college years to create a project of some sort that integrates and applies what they've learned. This issue will show examples of learning outcomes and best practices for capstone courses and programs.

peerReview: E-Portfolios for Reflection, Learning, and Assessment

Association of American Colleges and Universities

E-portfolios are now being used in more than half of US colleges and universities. This issue provides examples of how engaging with e-portfolios enhances student learning and can be used for assessment and students' professional preparation and job searches.

Taking Responsibility for the Quality of the Baccalaureate Degree

Association of American Colleges and Universities

 Describes emerging consensus among education leaders about liberal learning outcomes essential for all baccalaureate graduates.

Catching Theory Up with Practice: Conceptual Frameworks for Assessment

Astin, Ewell, Mentkowski, and Moran

An informative discussion between Marcia Mentkowski, Alexander Astin, Peter T. Ewell, E.Thomas Moran, and K. Patricia Cross on how practice connects with changes in the way we think about epistemology, student learning, measurement, and evaluation.

A Bird’s-Eye View of Assessment: Selections from Editor’s Notes

Banta

Here, pioneer Trudy Banta illuminates the many facets of assessment in colleges and universities during the past two decades. Addressing the principles of good assessment practice, she gives an insiders perspective and shares the larger questions and answers encountered in assessment. Ianthe final section, she looks at assessment outside the United States. This valuable publication will give you a broader, deeper appreciation of the successes, snares, and future of outcomes assessment.

Assessing Student Achievement in General Education: Assessment Update Collections

Banta

Synopsis: Standardized tests have been cyclically resurrected as assessment tools and repeatedly found wanting. This new issue looks at the broad range of skills; effective writing, information literacy, critical/analytical thinking, moral awareness, general communication ability, and more; desired in college graduates and explores the difficulties in designing successful measures of general education learning outcomes that satisfy all stakeholders.

Community College Assessment

Banta

Drawing on both faculty-created and standard measures, such as the Community College Student Experiences Questionnaire and the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, the authors explore the effectiveness of various approaches and how they can be used to make the kind of curricular changes that can lead to improved student- learning outcomes.

Hallmarks of Effective Outcomes Assessment

Banta

This booklet brings together the best guidance and practices that have appeared in the award-winning newsletter Assessment Update to illustrate time-tested principles for all aspects of assessment from planning and implementing to sustaining and improving assessment efforts over time. The booklet details the specific hallmarks that are required for the success of any assessment program-from leadership and staff development to the assessment of processes as well as outcomes, ongoing communication among constituents, and more. It presents a range of articles that reveal what these hallmarks look like in action and that provide examples of institution-wide approaches as well as specific strategies that have been used to ensure success and ongoing improvement. For the reader who is new to assessment this is an excellent and easy-to-use tool for getting a good understanding of what quality assessment looks like. For those with more experience, this booklet provides a wealth of specific strategies for improving existing programs or introducing new ones. Also, included is a matrix of hallmarks and articles, to help readers better match the articles to the hallmarks they illustrate.

Portfolio Assessment: Uses, Cases, Scoring, and Impact

Banta

The articles in this booklet present some of the best thinking on portfolio assessment from the leading researchers and practitioners in the field. They show how portfolios, including web-based portfolios, have been used at various institutions to assess and improve programs in general education, the major, and advising, as well as overall institutional effectiveness.

The Hallmarks of Effective Outcomes Assessment: Assessment Update Collections

Banta

This booklet brings together the best guidance and practices that have appeared in the award-winning newsletter Assessment Update to illustrate time-tested principles for all aspects of assessment from planning and implementing to sustaining and improving assessment efforts over time.

Building a Scholarship of Assessment

 Banta and Associates

 In this book, leading experts in the field examine the current state of assessment practice and scholarship, explore what the future holds for assessment, and offer guidance to help educators meet these new challenges. The contributors root assessment squarely in several related disciplines to provide an overview of assessment practice and scholarship that will prove useful to both the seasoned educator and those new to assessment practice. Ultimately, Building a Scholarship of Assessment will help convince skeptics who still believe outcomes assessment is a fad and will soon fade away that this is an interdisciplinary area with deep roots and an exciting future.

Making a Difference: Outcomes of a Decade of Assessment in Higher Education

Banta and Associates

Making a Difference presents a comprehensive account of the best practices and lessons learned in outcomes assessment. The book brings together detailed first-person accounts by the most successful practitioners in the field to show how assessment findings have been used to improve programs, student services, and student learning.

Assessment Update: The First 10 Years

Banta, Ewell, Gray, Pike, and Seybert

Whether motivated by the desire to improve programs and services or by external accountability pressures, assessment has become extraordinarily widespread. With some form of assessment being undertaken at virtually every institution of higher education, this volume is a resource to help you move toward more effective assessment on your campus. This collection of columns is drawn from ten years of Assessment Update, a bimonthly newsletter published by Jossey-Bass Publishers. The five columnists are among the top scholars/practitioners in the field.

Designing Effective Assessment: Principles and Profiles of Good Practice

Banta, Jones, and Black

Trudy Banta, Elizabeth Jones, and Karen Black offer 49 detailed current examples of good practice in planning, implementing, and sustaining assessment that are practical and ready to apply in new settings. This important resource can help educators put in place an effective process for determining what works and which improvements will have the most impact in improving curriculum, methods of instruction, and student services on college and university campuses.

Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses

Banta, Lund, Black, and Oblander

Brings together in one volume the best current knowledge of what assessment methods work best and how their principles should be incorporated into all effective assessment efforts, whether at institutional, program, or department levels. Drawing from 165 actual cases, and reporting 86 of them in their entirety, the authors illustrate methods and techniques of assessment covering a wide range of objectives in diverse types of institutions.

Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses

Banta, Lund, Black, and Oblander

Assessment in Practice brings together in one volume the best current knowledge of what assessment methods work best and what principles should be incorporated into all effective assessment efforts—whether at institutional, program, or department levels. Drawing from 165 actual cases—and reporting 86 of them in their entirety, in the words of those who developed them—the authors illustrate methods and techniques of assessment covering a wide range of objectives in diverse types of institutions.

Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty

Barkley

Keeping students involved, motivated, and actively learning is challenging educators across the country, yet good advice on how to accomplish this has not been readily available. Student Engagement Techniques is a comprehensive resource that offers college teachers a dynamic model for engaging students and includes over one hundred tips, strategies, and techniques that have been proven to help teachers from a wide variety of disciplines and institutions motivate and connect with their students. The ready-to-use format shows how to apply each of the book's techniques in the classroom and includes purpose, preparation, procedures, examples, online implementation, variations and extensions, observations and advice, and key resources.

Thirteen Strategies to Measure College Teaching: A Consumer’s Guide for Faculty, Administrators, and Clinicians to Rating Scale Construction, Assessment, and Decision Making

Berk

This book takes off from the premise that student ratings are a necessary, but not sufficient source of evidence for measuring teaching effectiveness. It is a fun-filled--but solidly evidence-based--romp through more than a dozen other methods that include measurement by self, peers, outside experts, alumni, administrators, employers, and even aliens.

Making Teaching and Learning Visible: Course Portfolios and the Peer Review of Teaching

 Bernstein, Burnett, Goodburn, and Savory

This book offers a model of peer review intended to help faculty document, assess, reflect on, and improve teaching and student learning through the use of a course portfolio. It features a rich collection of materials—including four dozen exhibits to help assemble a portfolio, reviewers’ comments, and reflections drawn from more than 200 professors and portfolio authors in various disciplines and institutions—that faculty can use to develop their course portfolios to be used in their peer review of teaching.

Assessing and Improving Your Teaching: Strategies and Rubrics for Faculty Growth and Student Learning ;

Blumberg

This practical evidence-based guide promotes excellence in teaching and improved student learning through self-reflection and self-assessment of one’s teaching. Phyllis Blumberg starts by reviewing the current approaches to instructor evaluation and describes their inadequacies. She then presents a new model of assessing teaching that builds upon a broader base of evidence and sources of support. This new model leads to self-assessment rubrics, which are available for download, and the book will guide you in how to use them. The book includes case studies of completed critical reflection rubrics from a variety of disciplines, including the performing and visual arts and the hard sciences, to show how they can be used in different ways and how to explore the richness of the data you’ll uncover.

Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should be Learning More

Bok

Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, former Harvard President Derek Bok examines how much progress college students actually make toward widely accepted goals of undergraduate education. His conclusions are sobering. Although most students make gains in many important respects, they improve much less than they should in such important areas as writing, critical thinking, quantitative skills, and moral reasoning. Large majorities of college seniors do not feel that they have made substantial progress in speaking a foreign language, acquiring cultural and aesthetic interests, or learning what they need to know to become active and informed citizens. Overall, despite their vastly increased resources, more powerful technology, and hundreds of new courses, colleges cannot be confident that students are learning more than they did fifty years ago.

Looking further, Bok finds that many important college courses are left to the least experienced teachers and that most professors continue to teach in ways that have proven to be less effective than other available methods. In reviewing their educational programs, however, faculties typically ignore this evidence. Instead, they spend most of their time discussing what courses to require, although the lasting impact of college will almost certainly depend much more on how the courses are taught.

In his final chapter, Bok describes the changes that faculties and academic leaders can make to help students accomplish more. Without ignoring the contributions that America's colleges have made, Bok delivers a powerful critique--one that educators will ignore at their peril.

Measuring Quality: Choosing Among Surveys and Other Assessments of College Quality

Borden and Owens

The purpose of this guide is to articulate a set of questions and issues that campus leaders can review when deciding whether to participate in a given surveyor use a specific assessment instrument. The guide also describes some of the major national surveys and assessments. Although the guide does not rate or recommend these services, it suggests the criteria that campus leaders should use to determine the use and usefulness of any such instrument or service based on specific campus needs, capabilities, and goals. The guide is divided into three major sections. The first poses some general questions that are important to consider before deciding whether to participate, or continue to participate, in a national assessment. The second section provides common descriptive information for some of the national assessments that were popular when the guide was written. The third section reviews some specific questions and issues regarding the choice of specific instrument or service and how to optimize participation.

The Assessment of Doctoral Education: Emerging Criteria and New Models for Improving Outcomes

Borkowski, Denecke, and Mak

This book provides a foundation for faculty and academic leaders of doctoral programs to promote inquiry into the educational practices that define their programs and contribute to graduate students' learning. It presents an array of examples of new program-and student-level assessment practices. The ideas and practices described here expand program review to include evidence of student learning--that is, students' demonstration of their knowledge, abilities, habits of mind, ways of knowing, ways of problem-solving, and dispositions--through direct and indirect assessment methods that verify or challenge the efficacy of educational practices.

Assessing Student Learning in General Education: Good Practice Case Studie s

Bresciani

This book is a compilation of good practice case studies that are intended to assist faculty and administrators in both two-year and four-year institutions with the evaluation of student learning as it relates to general education. There are several ways in which to evaluate general education, and each case study varies in its approach.

Outcomes-Based Academic and Co-Curricular Program Review

Bresciani

This book is intended for faculty, administrators and staff responsible for implementing and sustaining outcomes-based assessment program review. It aims to help them understand the "what", "why “and "how" of outcomes-based assessment program review. Rather than adopting a prescriptive approach, it provides a rich array of case studies and ideas as a basis for reflection and discussion to help institutions develop solutions that are appropriate to their own missions and cultures.

Case Studies for Implementing Assessment in Student Affairs: New Directions for Student Services

Bresciani, Gardner, and Hickmott

Thirteen case studies of successful assessment implementation in a wide range of institutes -- community colleges, private four-year liberal arts colleges, and public colleges and universities of various sizes and missions -- are all in this one volume. 

Demonstrating Student Success: A Practical Guide to Outcomes-based Assessment of Learning and Development in Student Affairs  

Bresciani, Gardner, and Hickmott

This practical guide to outcomes-based assessment in student affairs is designed to help readers meet the growing demand for accountability and for demonstrating student learning. The authors offer a framework for implementing the assessment of student learning and development and pragmatic advice on the strategies most appropriate for the readers ‘particular circumstances.

Assessing Student Learning in General Education: Good Practice Case Studies

Bresciani, Zelna, and Anderson

Many resources on implementing general education are available, but few are written to help those faculty and administrators responsible for general education with its evaluation. This book is a compilation of good practice case studies that are intended to assist faculty and administrators in both two-year and four-year institutions with the evaluation of student learning as it relates to general education. There are several ways in which to evaluate general education, and each case study varies in its approach. How do differences in institutional culture affect the evaluation of general education? Are institutions that lack the capacity or the culture to work across departmental or division lines to identify learning outcomes or the criteria to evaluate those outcomes employing effecting outcomes-based assessment?

The Art and Science of Classroom Assessment

Brookhart

Discusses the quality of individual student assessments in higher education courses and their composite effect on course grades. Reviews the literature on making classroom assessments and their impact on the science of student assessment. Such activity requires instructional skill, interest, and a disposition toward clarity and fairness. Brookhart discusses such critical issues and suggests resources for further study.

Five High-Impact Practices: Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion, and Quality

Brownell and Kuh

This monograph examines what educational research reveals about five educational practices: first-year seminars, learning communities, service learning, undergraduate research, and capstone experiences. The authors explore questions such as: What is the impact on students who participate in these practices? Is the impact the same for both traditional students and those who come from historically underserved student populations? The monograph includes a foreword by George D. Kuh, "High-Impact Practices: Retrospective and Prospective," and recommendations for how to improve the quality of high-impact practices.

 Assessments A-Z: A Collection of 50 Questionnaires, Instruments, and Inventories

Burn and Payment

Save valuable time and resources with this comprehensive and easy-to-use collection of reproducible assessments. With fifty assessments to choose from, you’re sure to find one--and probably more!--that suits your training needs.

Electronic Portfolios: Emerging Practices in Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning

Cambridge

This introduction examines the potential of electronic portfolios by addressing: rationales for creating an electronic portfolio; possible features of the portfolio; examples of current practice; cautions; and recommendations. Chapters by nineteen portfolio practitioners from a range of disciplines and institutions describe the construction and use of electronic portfolios.

E-portfolios for Lifelong Learning and Assessment

Cambridge

This book clearly articulates the foundations of an educational vision that is distinctively supported by e-portfolio use, drawing on work in philosophy, sociology, higher and adult education, and eLearning research. It is academically rigorous and accessible not only to scholars in a range of disciplines who might study or use e-portfolios. It surveys the state-of-the-art of international e-portfolio practice and suggests future directions for higher educational institutions in terms of curriculum, assessment, and technology. This resource is written for scholars, support staff, instructional technologists, academic administrators, and policy makers.

Electronic Portfolios 2.0: Emergent Research on Implementation and Impact

Cambridge, Cambridge, and Yancey

This book features emergent results of studies from 20 institutions that have examined effects on student reflection, integrative learning, establishing identity, organizational learning, and designs for learning supported by technology. It also describes how institutions have responded to multiple challenges in e-portfolio development, from engaging faculty to going to scale.

These studies exemplify how e-portfolios can spark disciplinary identity, increase retention, address accountability, improve writing, and contribute to accreditation. The chapters demonstrate the applications of e-portfolios at community colleges, small private colleges, comprehensive universities, research universities, and a state system.

Connecting the Dots: Developing Student Learning Outcomes and Outcome Based Assessments

Carriveau

This book contains forms and examples and a chapter on calculating, reporting and using outcome attainment measures.

Electronic Portfolios and Student Success: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Learning

Chen and Light

This publication presents an overview of electronic portfolios and ways individuals and campuses can implement e-portfolios to enhance and assess student learning, recognizing that learning occurs in many places, takes many forms, and is exhibited through many modes of representation. It is organized around eight issues central to implementing an e-portfolio approach: defining learning outcomes; understanding your learners; identifying stakeholders; designing learning activities; including multiple forms of evidence; using rubrics to evaluate e-portfolios; anticipating external uses of evidence; and evaluating the impact of e-portfolios. This work is illustrated through multiple campus case study examples.

Assessing Online Learning

Comeaux

This collection offers an assortment of tools and strategies for evaluating learning and instructional design in online classrooms. Both conceptual and practical, this book addresses the salient issues of assessment and offers a variety of assessment tools and strategies for online classrooms and programs, such as self-assessment tools for students to evaluate their progress toward their final products, instruments in which teams can evaluate their progress and contributions, and specific tools and strategies for assessing students' critical thinking and writing skills in electronic discussion boards and in similar reflective writing environments.

Emblems of Quality in Higher Education: Developing and Sustaining High Quality Programs

Conrade and Haworth

In addition to combing the research literature, the authors incorporated interviews with 781 students, faculty, and administrators in a broad range of academic and professional disciplines at a wide variety of colleges and universities. Their goal was to determine the factors that consistently foster excellence and result in positive learning experiences for students. In the course of their investigation they identified seventeen specific factors, which are described here along with the actions taken by administrators, faculty, and students to create an environment in which educational excellence thrives.

Applications of Intermediate/Advanced Statistics in Institutional Research

Coughlin

Similar to the learning objectives of the Applied Statistics Institute, the goal of this monograph is to educate the reader about: uses of non-parametric statistics for common assessment activities; applications of regression techniques to higher education problems and issues; uses of ANOVA for rating scale data, student performance data, and other IR data; applications of techniques for identifying groups and determining how groups differ; uses of advanced statistics to provide evidence of institutional effectiveness; and applications of multilevel modeling techniques to common institutional research questions.

The focus of this monograph is not to cover each statistical area in depth; rather it is to describe the theory and application of these procedures to Institutional Research settings. As a result, the reader should be familiar with basic statistical principles and applications. In addition, the reader may need to refer to supplemental readings provided within each chapter to more fully understand each statistical application.

2011 CHEA Almanac of External Quality Review

Council for Higher Education Accreditation

Topics addressed include accreditation and its value, institutions and programs in the United States accredited by recognized accrediting organizations, distance education, transfer of credit and degree mills and the danger they pose.

Assessment and Review of Graduate Programs  

Council of Graduate Schools

Definitive guide on the purposes, processes and practice of graduate program review. Revised in2011, discusses graduate program review and student learning outcomes assessment, with brief discussion of managing data analysis to inform strategic decisions at the university level for improving graduate education.

First Things First

Covey

Far from the traditional "be-more-efficient" time management book with shortcut techniques, First Things First shows you how to look at your use of time totally differently. Using this book will help you create balance between your personal and professional responsibilities by putting first things first and acting on them. Covey teaches an organizing process that helps you categorize tasks so you focus on what is important, not merely what is urgent.

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches

Creswell

The eagerly anticipated Fourth Edition of the title that pioneered the comparison of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research design is here! For all three approaches, Creswell includes a preliminary consideration of philosophical assumptions, a review of the literature, an assessment of the use of theory in research approaches, and reflections about the importance of writing and ethics in scholarly inquiry. He also presents the key elements of the research process, giving specific c attention to each approach. The Fourth Edition includes extensively revised mixed methods coverage, increased coverage of ethical issues in research, and an expanded emphasis on worldview perspectives.

Handbook of Qualitative Assessment

Denzin and Lincoln

Presenting the state-of-the-art for the theory and practice of qualitative inquiry, this landmark Handbook has been a publishing phenomenon in the human sciences since it first published in1994. As with earlier editions, the Fourth Edition is virtually a new volume. Representing the best thinking from top scholars from around the world, the new edition continues the book’s tradition of synthesizing an existing literature, defining the present, and shaping the future of qualitative research.

Developing a Moral Compass: What is the Campus Climate for Ethics and Academic Integrity?

Dey and Associates

Developing a Moral Compass focuses on whether—and how well—educational environments foster academic integrity and promote ethical responsibilities to self and others. The report presents findings from a unique campus climate assessment tool—administered in 2007 to 24,000 students and 9,000 academic administrators, faculty, and student affairs professionals at twenty-three colleges and universities—regarding opportunities for developing competence in ethical and moral reasoning and cultivating personal and academic integrity. Issues addressed in the publication include sources of support for students to discuss their moral and ethical challenges and the impact of academic honor codes. Ideal for on-campus and campus-community discussions about ethics and academic integrity, Developing a Moral Compass is the second report from the Core Commitments initiative.

A Field Guide to Academic Leadership

Diamond

"Once again, Bob Diamond has cut to the heart of the matter and has given us a field guide (actually a handbook) of real, hands-on academic leadership. He has assembled an elite group of contributors who provide insights and guidance, which will be useful for all academic leaders, new and old, public or private, CEO or assistant."

 Charles E. Glassick, senior associate emeritus, The Carnegie Foundation

Designing and Assessing Course Curricula: A Practical Guide

Diamond

A unique book and an excellent book written by an author of unparalleled reputation. Of all the literature on course and curriculum design I have read, none comes close to the level of advice provided in these pages. Highly recommended for faculty at every level. Howard B. Altman, director, linguistics program, University of Louisville Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricular reflects the best current knowledge and practice in course and curriculum design and connects this knowledge with the critical task of assessing and learning outcomes at both course and curricular levels. Tested and refined through long-term use and study, the change model presented in this book shows how to move from concept to actualization, from theory to practice.

Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricula: A Practical Guide (3rd edition)

Diamond

Designing and Assessing Courses and Curricular reflects the most current knowledge and practice in course and curriculum design and connects this knowledge with the critical task of assessing learning outcomes at both course and curricular levels. This thoroughly revised and expanded third edition of the best-selling book positions course design as a tool for educational change and contains a wealth of new material including new chapters, case examples, and resources.

Taking Ownership of Accreditation: Assessment Processes that Promote Institutional Improvement and Faculty Engagement

Driscoll and De Noriega

This book demonstrates how a participatory approach to assessment and accreditation in their new forms creates a synergy for learner-centered education. It is a guide to approaching the accreditation process from a campus-wide perspective of ownership--illustrated by rich descriptions of how faculty, students, and administrators at California State University Monterey Bay engaged with and successfully focused their accreditation processes on the improvement of their practices. The authors document strategies that are practical—ready to use or adapt—that are appropriate for all campuses. They also provide guidelines for the documentation process that accreditation demands. They demonstrate how they reduced traditional resistance to assessment by emphasizing its use for the improvement of student learning, helping faculty with their own teaching, and creating frameworks for continuing improvements that are valued by faculty. The authors emphasize the need for every institution to take into account its unique mission, vision, and core values; and to recognize the importance of individual departmental cultures. Although their accreditation "triggered" CSUMB’s engagement with assessment, the authors discuss other opportunities for jump-starting the process.

Developing Outcomes-based Assessment for Learner-centered Education: A Faculty Introduction

Driscoll and Wood

The authors--a once-skeptical chemistry professor and a director of assessment sensitive to the concerns of her teacher colleagues--use a personal voice to describe the basics of outcomes-based assessment. The purpose of the book is to empower faculty to develop and maintain ownership of assessment by articulating the learning outcomes and evidence of learning that are appropriate for their courses and programs. The authors offer readers a guide to the not always tidy process of articulating expectations, defining criteria and standards, and aligning course content consistently with desired outcomes. The wealth of examples and stories, including accounts of successes and false starts, provide a realistic and honest guide to what's involved in the institutionalization of assessment.

General Education and the Assessment Reform Agenda

Ewell

 Author Peter Ewell calls for accountability in higher education by focusing on abilities, alignment, assessment, and action. Drawing on the architecture of AAC&U's 2002 report Greater Expectations, Ewell uses these four "A-words" to reflect on how we can link assessment and general education, while assuming collective responsibility for the academy and its integrity

The Lumina Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP): Implications for Assessment

Ewell

Originally published by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment, this publication provides an in-depth exploration of the latest models for assessing the advanced college-level learning outcomes articulated in the Degree Qualifications Profile(DQP). Developed by the Lumina Foundation and released in “beta” form in 2011, the DQP describes the knowledge, skills, and applications that prepare graduates to succeed in the economy, civil society, and their own lives. Featuring reflections from two of the primary authors of the DQP, this publication offers guidance to stakeholders on how best to assess learning in relation to the competencies articulated in the DQP. NILOA's original publications available online

Advancing Liberal Education: Assessment Practices on Campus

Ferguson

This publication presents the stories of six different colleges and universities that have developed innovative programs to advance and assess key liberal education outcomes. Originally written for AAC&U News, these stories--which focus on writing, information literacy, understanding of diversity, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and civic engagement--offer models for effective assessment practices. Also included is information about finding additional assessment resources.

Making Progress? What We Know About the Achievement of Liberal Education Outcomes

Finley

 This new report provides an up-to-date overview of national data from a variety of studies of student learning, including the NSSE, Wabash National Study, CIRP, PSRI, and others. It presents comparative data on achievement over time across an array of liberal education outcomes—such as critical thinking, writing, civic engagement, global competence, and social responsibility. The report contrasts the very positive evidence drawn from what students think they have learned with the much more sobering evidence from national tests about what students actually can do in such areas as critical thinking, writing, and quantitative reasoning. It also reflects the growing evidence that how we construct the learning environment, e.g., by emphasizing high-impact practices, is a crucial component both in assessing learning and in raising students' level of achievement. Making Progress also underscores the educational value of new assessment practices, such as e-portfolios and scoring rubrics, that move students' actual work—papers, performances, research, etc.—to the center of assessment focus.

Assessing Underserved Student' Engagement in High-Impact Practices

Finley and McNair

This publication presents findings from a national study conducted by AAC&U researchers to investigate the impact of engagement in high-impact practices on traditionally underserved populations(defined here as first-generation, minority, transfer, and low-income students).The mixed-method analysis includes student-level data on engaged learning at thirty-eight participating institutions-from the state higher education systems in California, Oregon, and Wisconsin-drawn from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), as well as qualitative data obtained through student focus groups held at nine selected campuses. This report serves as a guide for campus-based inquiry to further our understanding of underserved student engagement with high-impact practices. The publication also includes a toolkit on assessing equity in high-impact practices developed by the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California.

Statistics 4^th Edition

Freedman, Pisani and Purves

Renowned for its clear prose and no-nonsense emphasis on core concepts, Statistics covers fundamentals using real examples to illustrate the techniques. The Fourth Edition has been carefully revised and updated to reflect current data.

Redesigning Higher Education: Producing Dramatic Gains in Student Learning

Gardiner

Reviews and synthesizes numerous studies of college student development and college effects on students. Analyses the effectiveness of common practices in curriculum, instruction, campus climate, and academic advising as revealed by research. Provides an overview of research-based recommendations for best practice in these areas, and many resources for improving practice, ideas for assessment, and evidence for developing a sense of urgency for change, and a vision of what is possible today.

Revising General Education and Avoiding the Potholes: A Guide for Curricular Change

Gaston and Gaff

Strategies for curricular change in the reform of general education are as important as the substance of the change. Fifty pitfalls and common errors in the process of reform are enumerated in this practical guide essential for general education committees. Revising General Education provides practical advice for how to advance a successful general education reform process—including tips in the areas of task force objectives and procedures, concepts of general education, program planning, proposal approval, and program implementation. Ideal for general education reform committees and faculty senate curriculum committees.

General Education and Liberal Learning: Principles for Effective Practice

Gaston, Clark, Ferren, Maki, Rhodes, Schilling, and Smith

General Education and Liberal Learning: Principles of Effective Practice explores elements common to strong general education programs and examines how strong programs support liberal learning outcomes essential to success in the twenty-first century. The publication surveys the changes that have occurred in general education programs—and more broadly in higher education—since AAC&U's Strong Foundations: Twelve Principles for Effective General Education Programs was published in 1994. The publication discusses how institutions may improve their general education practices and provides numerous examples of successful practices. Chapters include, "Imperatives for and Drivers of Change," "Principles of Strong General Education Programs," "Intentionality," "Alignment with the Majors," "Effective Pedagogy," "Assessment," and "Institutional Commitment." This publication is ideal for use by curriculum committees and groups working on reviewing, revising, or assessing general education programs.

A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment

Gupta

This how-to handbook is perfect for anyone seeking methodical approach to needs assessment. You’ll get a treasury of tools: worksheets, ready-to-use forms, and templates for planning a course of action. The accompanying disk, packed with job aids, enables you to customize materials for your own use.

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses: Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning

Huba and Freed

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses integrates current thinking and research regarding the learning of undergraduate students with principles of best practice in assessment and teaching. The book will help readers see the connection among three powerful trends in higher education today: the focus on learning and learners, the emphasis on the assessment of learning, and the need to continually improve what those in higher education do.

Integrative Learning: Mapping the Terrain

Huber and Hutchings

 Published by AAC&U and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching This paper explores the challenges to integrative learning today as well as its longer tradition and rationale within a vision of liberal education. In outlining promising directions for campus work, the authors draw on AAC&U's landmark report, Greater Expectations, as well as the Carnegie Foundation's long-standing initiative on the scholarship of teaching and learning. Readers will find a map of the terrain of integrative learning on which promising new developments in undergraduate education can be cultivated, learned from, and built upon.

The Course Portfolio: How Faculty can Examine Their Teaching to Advance Practice and Improve Student Learning

Hutchings

The Course Portfolio focuses on the unfolding of a single course, from conception to results. The volume covers defining features and functions, steps in development, audiences and occasions for use, and the course portfolio’s place in the development of a scholarship of teaching and learning. It also includes nine case studies by faculty in a range of disciplines who have developed and used course portfolios, as well as an annotated resource list.

Assessment Reconsidered: Institutional Effectiveness for Student Success

Keeling

Making meaning of how, what, when, and where students learn is a vital, exciting, and inspiring component of higher education. Increasing external demands for accountability and internal commitments to improvement are amplifying the need for comprehensive assessment practices. Assessment Reconsidered: Institutional Effectiveness for Student Success promotes the shared ownership of assessment planning among faculty, student affairs educators, administrators, and students. As a project of the International Center for Student Success and Institutional Accountability (ICSSIA), Assessment Reconsidered focuses on the collaborative use of all campus resources in promoting student success. Written by an ensemble of educators with broad experience in assessment theory and practice in higher education, this illuminating work helps both student affairs professionals and faculty members address internal and public questions about the functioning of post-secondary institutions by reconsidering assessment policies, patterns, and practices in colleges and universities. While the book acknowledges and responds to greater expectations for institutional accountability, its focus is on building capacity to engage in evidence-based, reflective practice and supporting educators in doing their best work. Assessment Reconsidered is not primarily a workbook or "how to" manual; instead, it addresses the substantive aspects of assessment and prepares readers to begin or improve assessment practice; it lays the foundation of concepts, knowledge, and skills that is essential for effectiveness.

Assessment in Engineering Programs: Evolving Best Practices

Kelly

This volume presents examples of sound assessment work achieved by combining national perspectives, program-level assessment plans, and practical advice for engineering faculty charged with measuring learning and skill development in the classroom.

Understanding the Role of Academic and Student Affairs Collaboration in Creating a Successful Learning Environment

Kezar

The topic of collaboration between academic and student affairs is now more important than ever if colleges and universities are to create seamless learning environments and educate students for the new collaborative work context. Institutions face the challenge of showing students by their own behavior that they are committed to collaboration, while still acknowledging that partnerships can be messy, that they can take more time, and that they can be frustrating. This volume examines authentic models of collaboration that will help to develop successful student leaders for the new century. It reviews the results of a national study on academic and student affairs collaborations and provides organizational models and facilitators of change as well as examples of facilitative strategies in action.

Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter

Kinzie, Kuh, Schuh, and Whitt

Student Success in College describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP)project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.

Ensuring Quality & Taking High Impact Practices to Scale

Kuh & O’Donnell

Building on previous AAC&U reports, this publication presents research on specific educational practices correlated with higher levels of academic challenge, student engagement, and achievement. The publication features the relationship between these practices and improvements in retention and graduation rates and advice on how to ensure that all students experience multiple high-impact practices. Detailed case studies show how five campuses are providing high-impact practices more pervasively and systematically.

Assessing Conditions to Enhance Educational Effectiveness: The Inventory for Student Engagement and Success

Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, and Whitt

From the authors of Student Success in College—the book that describes the policies, programs, and practices of twenty colleges and universities that have created success-oriented campus cultures and learning environments—comes the next-step resource to help an institution assess whether these conditions exist. The authors present the Inventory for Student Engagement and Success (ISES), a self-guided framework for conducting a comprehensive, systematic, institution wide analysis. The process also can be applied to areas within an institution, such as a school or college within a university, an academic or student affairs division, or a department or program. The ISES includes sets of diagnostic queries that focus on the six properties and conditions common to high-performing schools as well as the five clusters of effective educational practices featured on the National Survey of Student Engagement. Suggestions are offered to illustrate how the information generated from the ISES process can be used for various purposes including accreditation self-studies, program reviews, staff development, faculty and governing board retreats, and strategic planning.

Thinking About Teaching and Learning: Developing Habits of Learning with First Year College and University Students

Leamnson

Building on the insights offered by recent discoveries about the biological basis of learning, and on his own thought-provoking definitions of teaching, learning and education, the author proceeds to the practical details of instruction that teachers are most interested in--the things that make or break teaching. Practical and thoughtful, and based on forty years of teaching, wide reading and much reflection, Robert Leamnson provides teachers with a map to develop their own teaching philosophy, and effective nuts and-bolts advice.

The Art & Science of Assessing General Education Outcomes: A Practical Guide

 Leskes and Wright

 This guide offers practical recommendations for individuals involved with the assessment of general education programs and outcomes on campus. It includes step-by-step assessment checklist, tips for better assessment, and examples of assessment tools, methods, and rubrics for assessing a variety of key outcomes of a quality general education.

Documenting Learning with e-Portfolios: A Guide for College Instructors

Light, Chen, and Ittleson

E-portfolios perform many functions in higher education at both an institutional and student level. This book offers online instructors guidance in creating and implementing e-portfolios with their students. It helps them assess the needs of their students then design and implement a strategic, comprehensive e-portfolio program tailored to these needs. Further, it lets instructors see how such programs can be used as an example of their own personal and professional academic development. This is an essential resource for any online instructor or student wishing to use e-portfolios as a tool.

Assessment of Student Learning in College Mathematics: Towards Improved Programs and Courses

Madison

This work offers ten remarkably descriptive case studies in relation to assessing student learning in mathematics at nine U.S. universities.

Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution

Maki

Peggy Maki sees as an integrated and authentic approach to providing evidence of student learning based on the work that students produce along the chronology of their learning. She believes that assessment needs to be humanized, as opposed to standardized, to take into account the demographics of institutions, as students do not all start at the same place in their learning. Students also need the tools to assess their own progress.

In addition to updating and expanding the contents of her first edition to reflect changes in assessment practices and developments over the last seven years, such as the development of technology-enabled assessment methods and the national need for institutions to demonstrate that they are using results to improve student learning, Maki focuses on ways to deepen program and institution-level assessment within the context of collective inquiry about student learning.

Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution

Maki

Exploring the continuum of students' learning, this book sets the assessment of learning within the twin contexts of: (1) the level of a program, department, division, or school within an institution; and (2) the level of an institution, based on its mission statement, educational philosophy, and educational objectives. Each chapter explores ways to position assessment within program- and institutional-level processes, decisions, structures, practices, and channels of communication.

Coming to Terms with Student Outcomes Assessment: Faculty and Administrators’ Journeys to Integrating Assessment in their Work and Culture  

Maki

This is a book for skeptical faculty, for those who have been tasked to spearhead their institution’s call to create a culture of assessment; and, on campuses where assessment has been widely accepted and implemented, for those who now need to ensure this commitment will endure.

Assessment of Student Learning in Business Schools: Best Practices Each Step of the Way

Martell and Calderon

Issue 1 of 2. These works examine assessment methods in business disciplines and contain dozens of examples of learning objectives, methods, rubrics, and report templates.

Issue 2 of 2. These works examine assessment methods in business disciplines and contain dozens of examples of learning objectives, methods, rubrics, and report templates.

Technology-based Assessments for 21st Century Skills: Theoretical and Practical Implications from Modern Research

Mayrath, Clarke-Midura, Robinson, and Schraw

Creative problem solving, collaboration, and technology fluency are core skills requisite of any nation's workforce that strives to be competitive in the 21st Century. Teaching these types of skills is an economic imperative, and assessment is a fundamental component of any pedagogical program. Yet, measurement of these skills is complex due to the interacting factors associated with higher order thinking and multifaceted communication. Advances in assessment theory, educational psychology, and technology create an opportunity to innovate new methods of measuring students' 21st Century Skills with validity, reliability, and scalability. In this book, leading scholars from multiple disciplines present their latest research on how to best measure complex knowledge, skills, and abilities using technology-based assessments. All authors discuss theoretical and practical implications from their research and outline their visions for the future of technology-based assessments.

Student Perspectives on Assessment: What Students Can Tell Us about Assessment for Learning

McInerney, Brown, and Liem

A volume in Research on Sociocultural Influences on Motivation and Learning Series Editor: Dennis M. McInerney, The Hong Kong Institute of Education Assessment for learning is meant to engage, motivate, and enable students to do better in their learning. However, how students themselves perceive assessments (both high-stakes qualifications and low-stakes monitoring) is not well understood. This volume collects research studies from Europe, North and South America, Asia, and New Zealand that have deliberately focused on how students in primary, secondary, and tertiary education conceive of, experience, understand, and evaluate assessments. Assessment for learning has assumed that formative assessments and classroom practices would be an unqualified success in terms of student learning outcomes. Making use of a variety of qualitatively interpreted focus groups, observations, and interviews and factor-analytic survey methods, the studies collected in this volume raise doubts as to the validity of this formulation. We commend this volume to readers hoping to stimulate their own thinking and research in the area of student assessment. We believe the chapters will challenge researchers, policy makers, teacher educators, and instructors as to how assessment for learning can be implemented.

Beyond Tests and Quizzes: Creative Assessments in the College Classroom

Mezeske and Mezeske

Because the drive toward external assessment speaks almost exclusively in terms of standardized testing, we need to be reminded of the internal purposes of assessment: measuring learning for both student and teacher so that instruction can be adjusted and improved. This book is written for college instructors who are striving to creatively change assessment practice to better reflect learner-centered teaching. It is intended to consider not only the multiple ways in which individuals learn content, but also the multiple avenues to assessment the variety of learning styles demands.

Creative assessment is defined here as assessments that spin, twist, and reform what might be a standard kind of assessment in an ordinary classroom. Instructors should use these examples of creative assessment as starting points, and as the beginnings of an internal discussion on what matters most in the courses they teach: What components of each course count the most for solving a range of problems in the discipline? If facts are important, and they usually are, how can they be used to support a flexible approach to thinking, solving, considering options, and gathering and interpreting evidence? What are the facts not telling us?

Planning and Assessment in Higher Education: Demonstrating Institutional Effectiveness

Middaugh

Planning and Assessment in Higher Education provides guidance for assessing and promoting institutional effectiveness. The book contains a wide range of issues, from measures of effectiveness to communicating with the public. Written by an expert in the field, with titles such as the Assistant VP for Institutional Research and Planning, director of national costs of instruction research project, as well as the Vice Chair of an accreditation agency, this is an essential resource for university leaders for achieving institutional effectiveness.

Assessment in Cycles of Improvement: Faculty Designs for Essential Learning Outcomes

Miller

 This publication features a series of reports on how selected colleges and universities foster and assess student learning in twelve liberal education outcome areas, including writing, quantitative literacy, critical thinking, ethics, intercultural knowledge, and information literacy. Moving from goals to experiences, assessments, and improvements driven by assessment data, each institutional story illustrate show complex learning can be shaped over time and across programs to bring students to higher levels of achievement of these important outcomes.

Assessing Global Learning: Matching Good Intentions with Good Practices

Musil

Assessing Global Learning is designed to help colleges and universities construct and assess the impact of multiple, well-defined, developmental pathways through which students can acquire global learning. Specific program examples demonstrate how and where curricular and co-curricular learning can be embedded at various levels from individual courses to institutional mission. The publication argues for establishing clear global learning goals that inform departments, divisions, and campus life and suggests assessment frameworks. Includes a sample quantitative assessment survey and several assessment templates.

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition

National Research Council

Like the original hardcover edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methods--to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb.

How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system.

A Practitioner’s Handbook for Institutional Effectiveness and Student Outcomes Assessment Implementation (3^rd ed.)

Nichols

The Third edition of this standard reference work for college and university administrators charged with designing and implementing a model for assessment of student outcomes and institutional effectiveness. It has been revised and updated throughout and issued in a larger, more convenient format for ease of use at all appropriate levels. This is a key evaluation book used to show results and to improve, develop and implementing programs when dealing with assessment procedures. It has many examples from the growing record of successful implementation on campuses throughout the US.

The Departmental Guide and Record Book for Student Outcomes Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness

Nichols

The Departmental Guide, which has sold more than30,000 copies, in this third edition focuses exclusively on assessment of instructional programs. Sections on assessment in graduate and professional programs and an introduction to assessment in general education have been added, as has been expanded coverage of topics encountered as institutions attempt to "close the loop" to include utilization of assessment results to improve student learning. 

A Roadmap for Improvement of Student Learning and Support Services through Assessment

Nichols and Nichols

This new work completely replaces A Practitioner's Handbook for Institutional Effectiveness and Student Outcomes Assessment as the foundation volume in the series of five volumes that together constitute a step-by-step guide to the planning and implementation of assessment procedures at multiple levels across the institution. The principal authors have advised and assisted more than three hundred and fifty institutions, from small two-year colleges through major research institutions in every regional accrediting association, in designing and implementing a model for assessment of student outcomes and institutional effectiveness. With nearly one hundred charts and figures and many examples of assessment tests and surveys and related documents over a broad range of topics, Road Map provides a simple and focused pathway to successful implementation. The straightforward explanations and examples lead the campus across the Five-Column Model to "closing the loop" through the use assessment results to improve student learning and educational support and administrative services. Road Map also acknowledges the growing maturity of the assessment field by devoting considerable attention to the use of actual results to improve student learning and support services. Additionally, it provides separate chapters concerning assessment in: administrative and educational support services, general education, and two-year colleges, as well as graduate and professional level occupational programs. In each instance the narrative explains the difference in implementation in that specific context and provides examples of successful implementation. Road Map, with the companion monographs to which it is cross-referenced, provides comprehensive guidance and support for successful implementation at the institutional, departmental, and program levels.

The Department Head's Guide to Assessment Implementation in Administrative and Education Support Units

Nichols and Nichols

The first publication to recognize that while administrative and educational support (AES) units should conduct assessment to improve their services, their assessment focus and procedures are substantively different from those in the institution's instructional programs. The Department Head's Guide leads AES staff through formulation of administrative service objectives, to identification of means of assessment, as well as primary and secondary criteria for success, and ultimately to using the results of assessment activities to improve services. Among the AES units for which the authors provide examples of the process are the Office of the Registrar, the Library, the Career Center, and the Accounting Department. Assessment implementation in public service and research units is also discussed.

Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations

Novak

This fully revised and updated edition of Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge recognizes that the future of economic well-being in today's knowledge and information society rests upon the effectiveness of schools and corporations to empower their people to be more effective learners and knowledge creators. Novak’s pioneering theory of education presented in the first edition remains viable and useful. This new edition updates his theory for meaningful learning and autonomous knowledge building along with tools to make it operational ─ that is, concept maps, created with the use of CMapTools and the V diagram.

The theory is easy to put into practice, since it includes resources to facilitate the process, especially concept maps, now optimized by CMapTools software. CMapTools software is highly intuitive and easy to use. People who have until now been reluctant to use the new technologies in their professional lives are will find this book particularly helpful. Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge is essential reading for educators at all levels and corporate managers who seek to enhance worker productivity.

The Course Syllabus: A Learning Centered Approach

O’Brien, Millis, and Cohen

When it was first published in 1997, The Course Syllabus became the gold standard reference for both new and experienced college faculty. Like the first edition, this book is based on a learner-centered approach. Because faculty members are now deeply committed to engaging students in learning, the syllabus has evolved into a useful, if lengthy, document. Today's syllabus provides details about course objectives, requirements and expectations, and also includes information about teaching philosophies, specific activities and the rationale for their use, and tools essential to student success.

Assessing the Online Learner: Resources and Strategies for Faculty

Palloff and Pratt

This hands-on resource helps higher education professionals understand the fundamentals of effective online assessment. It offers guidance for designing and implementing creative assessment practices tied directly to course activities to measure student learning. The book is filled with illustrative case studies, authentic assessments based in real-life application of concepts, and collaborative activities that assess the quality of student learning rather than relying on the traditional methods of measuring the amount of information retained.

Assessment of Writing

Paretti and Powell

Addresses the changing times in writing across the curriculum (WAC) and the extensive use of electronic portfolios to assist with these efforts. The book points to increased collaboration among scholars from multiple disciplines as a common feature of the current philosophy in writing assessment.

How Accreditation Influences Assessment

Ratcliff, Lubinescu, and Gaffney

With the shift in accreditation from standards to student learning outcomes, and institutional and programmatic requirements to demonstrate student outcomes increasing; this volume offers timely perspectives and research on the latest developments in accreditation and assessment. The authors-accrediting agency officials, campus leaders involved with accreditation and assessment, and higher education researchers -- discuss six salient new directions in accreditation and assessment process that together offer effective ways to enhance student, faculty, and institutional learning. Examples of working accreditation programs include new methods of distance-education program assessment, an institutional accreditation self-study at the University of Vermont, and the Urban Universities Portfolio Project, a national study involving six urban universities who are using electronic portfolios to provide public access on student learning outcomes. The authors also present an initial review of accreditation and assessment backgrounds, changing standards, and underlying issues, as well as a survey of more than twenty written accreditation policies, making this volume a valuable resource for anyone planning or conducting an institutional self-study as a vehicle for change and renewal. This is the 113th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Higher Education.

Assessing Outcomes and Improving Achievement: Tips and Tools for Using Rubrics

Rhodes

This publication provides practical advice on the development and effective use of rubrics to evaluate college student achievement at various levels. Rubrics for fifteen liberal learning outcomes are included, and can be readily adapted to reflect the missions, cultures, and practices of individual institutions and programs. Developed by faculty members and other academic professionals, and tested on a variety of campuses, the rubrics establish measurable criteria for assessing each outcome at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of accomplishment.

Using the VALUE Rubrics for Improvement of Learning and Authentic Assessment

Rhodes and Finley

This publication addresses key elements of, and questions frequently raised about, the development and use of the VALUE rubrics for assessment of student learning. It provides information about rubric-based assessment approaches—including validity, reliability, and rubric modification—and faculty training in the use of rubrics. Specific examples of how campuses are using the VALUE rubrics to improve student learning are also provided.

Evaluation: A Systematic Approach (7^th Edition)

Rossi, Lispey, and Freeman

With decades of hands-on experience conducting evaluations, the authors provide scores of examples to help students understand how evaluators deal with various critical issues. They include a glossary of key terms and concepts, making this the most comprehensive and authoritative evaluation text available.

Thoroughly revised, the Seventh Edition now includes

* Substantially more attention to outcome measurement

* Lengthy discussions of program theory, including a section about detecting program effects and interpreting their practical significance

* An augmented and updated discussion of major evaluation designs

* A detailed exposition of meta-analysis as an approach to the synthesis of evaluation studies

* Alternative approaches to evaluation

* Examples of successful evaluations

* Discussions of the political and social contexts of evaluation

Technology and Assessment: A Tale of Two Interpretations

Russell

Together, the words technology and assessment have different meaning for different people. Those who work with educational or instructional technology take these words to mean assessing the impacts of technology on teaching and learning. Test developers and psychometricians, however, consider ways in which computer-based technologies can be used to enhance current approaches to student assessment.

This book examines technology and assessment from both perspectives by examining past, current and promising methodologies and applications in both fields. The influences instructional uses of technology and the increasing reliance on testing to gauge student and school performance have on one another are also explored. The book concludes by describing an organizational structure that could bring instructional applications of technology and assessment practices into closer alignment.

Assessing Students in the Margin: Challenges, Strategies, and Techniques

Russell and Kavanaugh

Collectively, this volume presents a comprehensive examination of the several issues that present challenges for assessing the achievement of all students. While our understanding of how to overcome these challenges continues to evolve, the lessons, strategies, and avenues for future research explored in this book empower educators, test developers, and testing programs with a deeper understanding of how we can improve assessments for students in the margins.

Assessment of Chemistry

Ryan, Clark, and Collier

This volume has two primary motives: to enhance students' learning and success in chemistry and to share helpful insights and lessons with other chemistry faculty. The book provides detailed presentations and case studies that can be adapted for use in a variety of contexts.

Creating Learning-Centered Courses for the World Wide Web

Sanders

This book shows faculty and students how to integrate good practices in learning, design, and webpage technology. Using the web, an educator can provide an active and interesting environment for his or her students to incorporate as part of a traditional classroom, as a supplement to the classroom, or in a distance learning course. The book begins with good practices in teaching and learning. Then it looks for design elements that can be applied to the web and pulls together the practice, design, and web technology. It provides examples of active learning, cohort learning, problem solving, and communication of complex information on the web.

A Brief History of Student Learning Assessment

Schavelson

 A Brief History of Student Learning Assessment offers a historical overview of testing in higher education and a proposal for a more productive approach to student learning assessment in the future that builds on the current Collegiate Learning Assessment. It provides an important context for today’s renewed calls for greater accountability and, more importantly, the urgent need to raise levels of student achievement. This publication helps us better understand the "state-of-the-art" in standardized testing today, and what the academy should ask - and what it can and cannot expect - from standardized testing in the future

Proclaiming and Sustaining Excellence: Assessment as a Faculty Role

Schilling and Schilling

This report provides a brief history of the most recent wave of assessment in higher education, particularly focused on the faculty role in assessment. It traces major conceptual, methodological, political and policy advances in assessment over the past decade. The authors suggest some ways of thinking about assessment, strategies, and next steps which they view as necessary for more clearly envisioning assessment as a faculty role.

Assessment Practice in Student Affairs: An Applications Manual

Schuh and Upcraft

When Assessment in Student Affairs was first published in 1996, readers found a practical context for viewing the power of assessment across the domain of student services. Since then, John H. Schuh and M. Lee Upcraft have received numerous requests for more specific guidance to assessing and communicating the value of student affairs. This manual continues the work begun in their earlier book and provides a full range of tools for conducting effective assessments.

Assessment: Case Studies, Experience, and Practice (Case Studies of Teaching in Higher Education)

Schwartz and Webb

The fourth volume in this series deals with one of the ubiquitous higher and further education subjects. With a practice-based approach, the text avoids being overly academic and instead uses a case study format to detail a wide range of approaches to assessment.

Beyond the Big Test: Non cognitive Assessment in Higher Education

Sedlacek

William E. Sedlacek--one of the nation's leading authorities on the topic of non-cognitive assessment--challenges the use of the SAT and other standardized tests as the sole assessment tool for college and university admissions. In Beyond the Big Test, Sedlacek presents a non-cognitive assessment method that can be used in concert with the standardized tests. This assessment measures what students know by evaluating what they can do and how they deal with a wide range of problems in different contexts. Beyond the Big Test is filled with examples of assessment tools and illustrative case studies that clearly show how educators have used this innovative method to:

·        Select a class diverse on dimensions of race, gender, and culture in a practical, legal, and ethical way

·        Teach a diverse class employing techniques that reach all students

·        Counsel and advise students in ways that consider their culture, race, and gender

·        Award financial aid to students with potential who do not necessarily have the highest grades and test scores

Assess the readiness of an institution to educate and provide services for a diverse student body

A Brief History of Student Learning Assessment: How We Got Where We Are and a Proposal for Where to Go Next

Shavelson

A Brief History of Student Learning Assessment offers a historical overview of testing in higher education and a proposal for a more productive approach to student learning assessment in the future that builds on the current Collegiate Learning Assessment. It provides an important context for today's renewed calls for greater accountability and, more importantly, the urgent need to raise levels of student achievement. This publication helps us better understand the "state-of-the-art" in standardized testing today, and what the academy should ask - and what it can and cannot expect - from standardized testing in the future.

Engaging Large Classes: Strategies and Techniques for College Faculty

Stanley and Porter

Large classes have become a fact of life in colleges and universities across America; even as academic funding has decreased, class enrollments have continued to rise. Although students, teachers, and administrators are often concerned by the potentially negative impact of uneven teacher-to-student ratios, large classes also offer many potential advantages that are less recognized and not always maximized.

In Engaging Large Classes, the authors demonstrate that large classes can be just as stimulating and rewarding as smaller classes. Written by experienced teachers of large classes across a wide range of disciplines and institutions, this book provides faculty members and administrators with instructional strategies and advice on how to enhance large class settings.

This book summarizes many of the core issues related to successfully teaching large classes, including

·        An honest review of the advantages and disadvantages of large classes

·        Advice on how to design, plan, manage, and fairly assess large classes

·        The universality of large-class issues across disciplines, from classroom management to working with teaching assistants

·        Strategies for using classroom technology, active learning, and collaborative learning

·        Seventeen detailed examples of large classes from a range of higher education institutions

The authors not only present an overview of research on teaching large classes, they also equip readers with helpful insight into the mechanics of large-class pedagogy. This book has the potential to change the way academia views the reality of teaching large classes.

Assessing College Student Learning: Evaluating Alternative Models, Using Multiple Methods

Sternberg, Penn, Hawkins, and Reed

 Campus leaders face a bewildering array of different assessment methods-standardized or locally designed tests and inventories, indirect methods focusing on student self-reports of engagement or gains in learning, portfolios, and other performance-based methods. This publication will help readers make sense of the broad assessment landscape. Part 1, by assessment expert Robert Sternberg and his colleagues, examines the psychological theories of learning and achievement that underlie these diverse methods and offers practical guidance on how to select among them. Part 2—five case studies—presents profiles of how different institutions are implementing comprehensive approaches to assessing student learning and the benefits of using multiple methods in combination.

Introduction to Rubrics: An Assessment Tool to Save Grading Time, Convey Effective Feedback and Promote Student Learning

Stevens and Levi

This book defines what rubrics are, and how to construct and use them. It provides a complete introduction for anyone starting out to integrate rubrics in their teaching. The authors go on to describe a variety of processes to construct rubrics, including some which involve student participation. They demonstrate how interactive rubrics--a process involving assessors and the assessed in defining the criteria for an assignment or objective--can be effective, not only in involving students more actively in their learning, but in establishing consistent standards of assessment at the program, department and campus level.

Student-Centered Classroom Assessment (second edition)

Stiggins

Provides a clear, common sense description of all assessment methods (selected response, essay, performance, and personal communication) and how to align them with relevant achievement targets(knowledge, reasoning, skills, products, and dispositions).Easy-to-read and free of technical jargon, this book focuses squarely on what teachers need to know in order to make assessment work in classrooms.

Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide

Suskie

The first edition of Assessing Student Learning has become the standard reference for college faculty and administrators who are charged with the task of assessing student learning within their institutions. The second edition of this landmark book offers the same practical guidance and is designed to meet ever-increasing demands for improvement and accountability.

Assessment to Promote Deep Learning: Insight from American Association for Higher Education’s 2000 and 1999 Assessment Conferences

Suskie

Papers from two conferences explore efforts to meet rising expectations for higher education through fair and honest assessment.

Proving and Improving: Strategies for Assessing the First College Year

Swing

The essays in this collection, initially written for an online audience, focus on the philosophy, methods, and outcomes of assessing the first-year experience of college students. Several recurrent themes highlight general agreement about best practices in first-year assessment, but the collection contains some differences of opinion also.

The Learning Paradigm College ;

Tagg

In The Learning Paradigm College, John Tagg builds on the ground-breaking Change magazine article he coauthored with Robert Barr in 1995, “From Teaching to Learning; A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education.” That piece defined a paradigm shift happening in American higher education, placing more importance on learning outcomes and less on the quantity of instruction. As Tagg defines it, “Where the Instruction Paradigm highlights formal processes, the Learning Paradigm emphasizes results or outcomes. Where the Instruction Paradigm attends to classes, the Learning Paradigm attends to students.”

The Learning Paradigm College presents a new lens through which faculty and administrators can see their own institutions and their own work. The book examines existing functional frameworks and offers a way to re-envision and recast many familiar aspects of college work and college life, so that readers may better understand their learners and move toward a framework that focuses on learning outcomes.

Divided into five parts, the book introduces the Learning Paradigm, concentrates on understanding our learners, provides a framework for producing learning, discusses the six essential features of the Learning Paradigm college, and focuses on how to become a Learning Paradigm college.

Learning Through Assessment: A Resource Guide for Higher Education

University Leadership Council

This book is intended to provide college administrators, faculty, and researchers with a guide to resources concerned with assessment at the postsecondary level. The major portion of the book is divided into two sections: The "Assessment Library"(Lion F. Gardner), includes a guide to general references for those new to assessment and an annotated bibliography with a comprehensive index. The other section, compiled by Caitlin Anderson, Michael K. Smith, and Jama L. Bradley, consists of six sections which list: (1) associations and organizations; (2) conferences; (3) instruments; (4) Internet resources; (5) multimedia resources; and (6) technology resources. Also included is a glossary of assessment terms and two indexes: an author index of works abstracted in the bibliography and a keyword index to the entire guide. (Contains 306references.)

Measuring What Matters: Competency-Based Learning Models in Higher Education ;

Vorhees

Intended as a toolkit for academic administrators, faculty and researchers to deal effectively with the rapid emergence of competency-based learning models across higher education, this volume provides practical advice and proven techniques for implementing and evaluating these models. Drawing from a recent National Post-secondary Education Cooperative project that examined data and policy implications across public and private institutions as well as an industrial setting, readers will find an inventory of strong practices to utilize in evaluating competency-based initiatives

Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education

Walvoord

Assessment Clear and Simple is "Assessment 101"in a book--a concise and step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others.

Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment

Walvoord and Anderson

This new edition of the classic book has been thoroughly updated and revised with the latest research. The book offers a hands-on guide for evaluating student work and examines the link between teaching and grading. The authors show how to integrate the grading process with course objectives and offer a wealth of information about student learning. The book also includes information on integration of technology and online teaching, and is filled with more illustrative examples, including a sample syllabus. This revised resource can help any professor enrich student learning in the classroom.

Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College

Walvoord and Anderson

This new edition of the classic book has been thoroughly updated and revised with the latest research. The book offers a hands-on guide for evaluating student work and examines the link between teaching and grading. The authors show how to integrate the grading process with course objectives and offer a wealth of information about student learning. The book also includes information on integration of technology and online teaching, and is filled with more illustrative examples, including a sample syllabus. This revised resource can help any professor enrich student learning in the classroom.

Meaningful Course Revision: Enhancing Academic Engagement Using Student Learning Data

Wehlburg

Faculty are often motivated to change the activities and design of their courses for reasons not based on data. In Meaningful Course Revision, the author seeks instead to illustrate how the appropriate use of multiple, direct measures of student-learning outcomes can lead to enhanced course development and revision. While providing an outline of methods for creating significant learning experiences, the book also includes practical suggestions for shaping the design of a course to meet student needs.

Meaningful Course Revision urges a rethinking of teaching and learning. By making student advancement its focal point, it offers guidance through

·        Data-based decision making

·        Designing course-based assessment activities

·        Using data to enhance innovation in course redesign

·        Rethinking teaching and learning

·        Embedding assessment activities in meaningful ways

·        Planning the course

·        Closing the feedback loop

·        Moving from course-level decision making to departmental curriculum planning

·        Creating a culture of student-learning outcomes assessment

Written for faculty seeking advice on how to keep their teaching interesting and effective, Meaningful Course Revision is a practical guide for collecting information about how well students are reaching course goals, learning what impact course changes are having on student learning, and putting courses into a cycle of continual revision and improvement.

Investing in Success: Cost-Effective Strategies to Increase Student Success

Wellman and Brusi

This publication provides advice and planning tools to help educational leaders invest in high-impact practices, despite budget constraints. It presents ways to evaluate both the benefits and costs of high impact practices, and strategies for investing in innovations. Building on research from the Access to Success initiative and the Delta Cost Project, the authors provide examples of campuses that have made wise investments developing or scaling particular practices, with positive results for student learning, graduation rates, and the bottom line.

Departments that Work: Building & Sustaining Cultures of Excellence

Wergin and Bensimon

Evaluation in departments is widespread but often fails to spark positive change. Based on his extensive work with academic departments across the country, Wergin explains that successful department evaluation exists only when faculty and departments have a strong influence on the purposes, processes, and methods of evaluation. The central purpose of Departments That Work is how academic programs can make evaluation more useful and critical reflection more likely.

Topics include:

* How quality has become confused with such concepts as effectiveness, productivity, and marketability and how it might more constructively be conceived as focusing on the engagement of the department with its constituencies

* An examination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of faculty work, the concept of organizational motivation, and the factors influencing identification with the institution and motivation to contribute to it

* The three critical factors of effective department evaluation

* How academic leaders can create a culture of engagement

* How to define and negotiate academic values with diverse stakeholders

* How to ask the right questions and collect the right idea

* How to determine standards and make meaning of evaluation data

* An overall summary of specific recommendations for academic leaders and departmental faculty, including an appendix of the constructs presented in each chapter

Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation

Wholey, Hatry, and Newcomer

Praise for the third edition of the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation

"Mix three of the most highly regarded evaluators with a team of talented contributors, and you end up with an exceedingly practical and useful handbook that belongs on the reference shelf of every evaluator as well as program and policy officials." —Jonathan D. Breul, executive director, IBM Center for The Business of Government

"Joe Wholey and his colleagues have done it again—a remarkably comprehensive, thoughtful, and interesting guide to the evaluation process and its context that should be useful to sponsors, users, and practitioners alike." —Eleanor Chelimsky, former U.S. Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation and Methodology

"Students and practitioners of public policy and administration are fortunate that the leading scholars on evaluation have updated their outstanding book. This third edition of the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation will prove once again to be an invaluable resource in the classroom and on the front lines for a public service under increasing pressure to do more with less."—Paul L. Posner, director, public administration, George Mason University, and immediate former president, the American Society of Public Administration

"The third edition of the Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation reflects the evolving nature of the field, while maintaining its value as a guide to the foundational skills needed for evaluation." —Leslie J. Cooksy, current president, the American Evaluation Association

The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning

Zubizarreta

The learning portfolio is a powerful complement to traditional measures of student achievement and a widely diverse method of recording intellectual growth. This second edition of this important book offers new samples of print and electronic learning portfolios. An academic understanding of and rationale for learning portfolios and practical information that can be customized. Offers a review of the value of reflective practice in student learning and how learning portfolios support assessment and collaboration. Includes revised sample assignment sheets, guidelines, criteria, evaluation rubrics, and other material for developing print and electronic portfolios.