The reliability and validity of course grades as measures of general education learning outcomes were assessed using the multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) proposed by Campbell and Fiske. Convergent validity and discriminant validity were assessed on college undergraduate students over a 12-year period. Two procedures were used to test the MTMM. The…

Quality assurance is a major agenda in tertiary education. The casualisation of academic work, especially in teaching, is also a quality assurance issue. Casual or sessional staff members teach and assess more than 50% of all university courses in Australia, and yet the research in relation to the role sessional staff play in quality assurance of…

This chapter provides a big-picture view of the postgraduate outcomes landscape. In an effort to promote understanding and to communicate the value of a higher education credential to various stakeholders, five national efforts are described, each of which provides a different perspective for defining, measuring, and collecting postgraduate…

Assessment of student learning in graduate education often takes the form of a summative measure by way of written comprehensive exams. However, written examinations, while suitable for evaluating cognitive knowledge, may not fully capture students' abilities to transfer and apply leadership related knowledge and skills into real-world practice.…

Externally imposed assessment requirements in higher education call for documented attention to using assessment results for program improvement. Although this systematic process promises to lead to better learning outcomes it has also been challenged as ineffective and even harmful. What can make assessment truly meaningful and move beyond the…

This study analyzes a sample of students' writing to assess their understanding of marketing concepts in the context of a Principles of Marketing course. Content analysis of pre- and post-essays was used to assess student knowledge of marketing concepts. The data was collected in Principles of Marketing classes. and highlight that many students…

Following on the 2008-2012 OECD Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) feasibility study of civil engineering, in Japan a mechanical engineering learning outcomes assessment working group was established within the National Institute of Education Research (NIER), which became the Tuning National Center for Japan. The purpose of…

Objective: This study was aimed at determining the external validity of the psychometric properties of a two-factor Collegiate Learning Assessment Performance Task Diagnostic Instrument (CLAPTDI) for use in assessing learning skills among predominantly black college students. The construct validity of the two factors CLAPTDI had been established…

Articles on student learning outcomes assessment often treat faculty as one homogenous body. Yet the exponential growth of contingent faculty in universities and colleges has created two distinct faculty groups with varied concerns and thoughts on everything from the future of higher education to shared governance to student learning outcomes.…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) What Makes a Performance Indicator an Equity-Driven, High-Performance Indicator? (Marilee Bresciani Ludvik); (2) Editor's Notes: The Leadership Imperatives for Assessment Excellence: Imperative #1, Making Assessment Excellence a Strategic Institutional Priority…

The article is focused on the correlation of competencies, learning outcomes and the methods of their assessment in the course of current, interim (endof-module) and final assessment. It provides a general idea of the background and difficulties associated with the use of competence based learning in the Russian context. We propose an algorithm…

The majority of studies and reports on university education in Africa have focused mainly on issues related to access, quality, teaching and learning environment, and so on. Although these issues are undoubtedly critical, even more germane to the discourse is the desired utility of university education to society. The authors present the…

In a replication of a classic article by Hunt, Chonko, and Wood, regression analysis was conducted using data from a sample of 864 marketing professionals. In contrast to Hunt, Chonko, and Wood, an undergraduate degree in marketing was positively related to income in marketing jobs, but surprisingly, respondents with some nonmarketing majors…

This study pioneers a Rasch scoring approach and compares it to a conventional summative approach for measuring longitudinal gains in student learning. In this methodological note, our proposed methodology is demonstrated using an example of rating scales in a student survey as part of a higher education outcome assessment. Such assessments have…

This study disaggregates posttest, pretest, and value-added or difference scores in economics into four types of economic learning: positive, retained, negative, and zero. The types are derived from patterns of student responses to individual items on a multiple-choice test. The micro and macro data from the "Test of Understanding in College…