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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Yet, educators, policymakers, employers, and other interested stakeholders continue to strive for more comprehensive indicators of a "quality undergraduate experience," including those that measure student learning outcomes and graduates' readiness for success in the workforce. Students, parents, and government agencies -- all of which invest heavily in postsecondary education in the country -- need as much information as possible about the outcomes of the higher education experience and the extent to which they can expect a fair return on their investment in higher education.
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The planning committee intended for the discussions among college and university faculty and administrators; state and federal agency officials, legislators, and staff; accreditors; policy organizations; business leaders and also includes five pieces of data about a college: costs, graduation rate, loan default rate, average amount borrowed, and employment. More information is available at http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/education-department-releases-college-scorecard-help-students-choose-best-college-them.
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. The planning committee's discussion document focused on five themes: 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.
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Defining and measuring the various desired educational outcomes of higher education are major challenges to creating better quality indicators. New information about the outcomes of students attending institutions, such as the cohort completion rates, debt repayment, and median earnings found on the College Scorecard, represent a large stride forward in developing institutional quality measures.
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Workshop participants considered the ideas and themes in both papers throughout the 2 days. The workshop itself included panel sessions, expert presentations, small-group discussions of key topics and themes, and largegroup "report-outs" and discussions about the topics and themes.
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" Several workshop participants discussed how new demands are being placed on higher education because its traditional institutions were established during an era with different expectations. Sally Johnstone (Western Governors University)
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These opening discussions set the stage for a series of panel discussions and small-group conversations focused on potential next steps for clarifying the definitions of quality, measuring the quality of student learning and mastery of skills, and developing an accountability system that communicates indicators of quality to the various stakeholders while protecting the academic freedom of postsecondary institutions. 11 See https://www.aacu.org/leap.
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