Quality in the Undergraduate Experience What Is It? How Is It Measured? Who Decides? Summary of a Workshop (2016) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix B: Quality in the Undergraduate Experience - A Discussion Document
Appendix B: Quality in the Undergraduate Experience - A Discussion Document
Pages 47-56
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From page 47... ...
It elaborates on the five themes identified in the workshop invitation: the measurement of student learning; qualitative factors often cited as important outcomes of undergraduate education; the importance and challenges of assessment; federal policy implications of assessing quality; and the importance of context with regard to institution type, learning environments, and student goals. We do not intend to address all facets of the quality challenge, nor do we mean to suggest that this is the only way to unpack it.
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From page 48... ...
The AAC&U sponsored VALUE Rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) provide tools to help assess students' work produced across the students' varied learning pathways and institutions, "to determine whether and how well they are progressing toward graduation-level achievement in learning outcomes that both employers and faculty consider essential." Dimensions considered by VALUE include intellectual and practical skills (inquiry and analysis, critical thinking, creative thinking, written communication, oral communication, reading, quantitative literacy, information literacy, teamwork, and problem solving)
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From page 49... ...
Broad and integrative knowledge asks that students are able to consolidate and utilize knowledge across multiple areas to discover and explore questions that span multiple fields of study. Intellectual skills are defined as evidence-based reasoning across fields of study and include: analytic inquiry and operations, use of information resources, engaging diverse perspectives, ethical reasoning, quantitative fluency, and communicative fluency.
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From page 50... ...
There is wide agreement that it should also inculcate a range of diffuse skills and habits of mind that prepare students for lives of engaged citizenship, intercultural competence, social responsibility, and continued intellectual growth. While some of these capacities and habits are addressed by the VALUE rubrics described above, their measurement defies precise and consensually accepted methods.
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From page 51... ...
Instructional quality can also be assessed at the departmental level, which would involve an expansion of assessment of individual courses. The individual course level elements considered can be summed up for all the courses offered by a department to gauge variation and engagement with evidence-based teaching practices at the level of a course series/sequence and through the entire degree program.
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From page 52... ...
But this may challenge the system to create quality performance assessments to demonstrate that students are indeed acquiring the knowledge and skills that a department, program or college has promised to deliver. In addition, numerous approaches exist to help institutions gauge their overall impact on students, including student surveys that assess the learning experience (NSSE, CCSSE, UCUES/SERU)
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From page 53... ...
It attends to facets of institutional performance that do not lend themselves to easy measurement in a comparative framework, and the use of external peer reviewers is a common approach to performance assessment in professional domains that rely on expert judgment to navigate complexity and specialized knowledge. Can the accreditation process be modified to provide more useful consumer information and to provide federal policymakers with better information about institutional performance, while continuing to serve its core purpose?
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From page 54... ...
Higher education -- whether in a community or technical college, a private liberal arts college, or a public research university -- represents a significant investment by students (both direct expenditure and opportunity cost) and by taxpayers (whether direct institutional subsidy or student financial aid)
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From page 55... ...
3. Can -- and should -- a group be assembled to create a core set of principles to guide the development of a general framework for measuring quality in undergraduate education -- one that can be adopted by nearly any type of institution, e.g., 4-year university, 2-year college, online institution, "boot camp," etc.?
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