What is Assessment?
Resources for Faculty and Academic Administrators
Outcomes assessment is the collaborative effort in systematic planning, collection, review, and use of information about educational programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and development. Assessment involves setting explicit student learning goals or outcomes for an academic program, evaluating the extent to which students are reaching those goals, and using the information for continuous program development and improvement.
The purpose of assessment is to understand how academic programs are working and to determine how they are contributing to student achievement of program goals. Assessment is an important tool that facilitates discussion and provides useful information to faculty and administrators about program strengths and areas for improvement.
The objective of formative assessment is to, via low-stakes assignments, track student learning as it occurs, in order to provide ongoing feedback that can then be incorporated by professors. Conversely, summative assessment measures the overall impact and effectiveness of student learning at the closing of a semester via high-stakes assignments. As such, assessment and grading are not the same. Generally, the goal of grading is to evaluate individual students’ learning and performance. Although grades are sometimes treated as a proxy for student learning, they are not always a reliable measure. Moreover, they may incorporate criteria – such as attendance, participation, and effort – that are not direct measures of learning.
The goal of assessment is to improve student learning. Although grading can play a role in assessment, assessment goes beyond grading by systematically examining patterns of student learning across courses and programs and using this information to improve educational practices.
