The Dilemma of Assessment in the US

Abstract

Assessment is the evaluation of student learning in specific learning outcomes such as integrative thinking, writing, civic engagement, or appreciation of diversity. When conducted well, it produces evidence of learning that should lead to improvements in pedagogy and curriculum. But many educators at American colleges and universities remain suspicious or fearful of assessment. This fear or suspicion of a function so obviously linked to the purpose of education is rooted in the tension between different purposes to which assessment evidence can be put: Assessment can be used positively to encourage thoughtful reflection on pedagogical practice, or negatively to threaten “underperforming” teachers and institutions. This is the dilemma of assessment in American higher education. However, a number of developments in higher education over the past few decades—online learning, the problem of transfer credits, discontent with the credit hour—have their own dilemmas that only quality assessment can address. Assessment is a critical component in moving higher education out of the regimented industrial age into the personalized, flexible learning of the post-industrial twenty-first century.