The George Mason University (Mason) offices responsible for institutional reporting and assessment were merged to strengthen and solidify their functions and expertise. The organizational structure creating the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning (OIEP) was intended to engineer a new paradigm where assessment would inform the…

Open-ended responses to surveys can be highly beneficial to higher education institutions, providing clarity and context that quantitative data can sometimes lack. However, analyzing open-ended responses typically takes time and manpower most institutional assessment offices do not have to spare. This study focused on finding a potential solution…

Institutions of higher education are asked to consider how their work can advance equity in institutional outcomes. Assessment, too, has been asked to consider the ways in which traditional student assessment "privileges and validates certain types of learning and evidence of learning over others" (Montenegro and Jankowski 2017, p. 5).…

The Grand Challenges for Assessment in Higher Education project is a collaborative effort of 10 endorsing organizations and over 400 volunteers to increase the extent to which assessment (1) supports equity; (2) is visible, actionable, and drives innovation; and (3) guides rapid improvements in pedagogy (Singer-Freeman and Robinson 2020). Several…

Scholars have advocated for student voice and participation across curriculum design, assessment planning, and policymaking in higher education to advance and achieve equity (Montenegro and Jankowski 2020; Jankowski and Bheda 2022; Damiano 2018). However, the reality seems far different from the intention or aspiration, primarily because explicit…

With increasing canonicity, particularly within higher education assessment, the demonstrable achievement of goals, or the delivery of a program, or as one scholar wryly deemed it, the "manipulation of the independent variable" (Moncher and Prinz 1991, p. 247), are commonly referred to as implementation fidelity or fidelity of…

The "Excellence in Assessment" (EIA) designation's purpose has been to recognize institutions of higher education that demonstrate an ability to integrate assessment practices throughout the institution, provide evidence of student learning outcomes, and use assessment results to guide decision-making and improve student performance.…

Program review is a critical process in higher education that helps institutions assess and evaluate the effectiveness of programs and services. Program review provides an opportunity for an institution to identify strengths and weaknesses in its programs and services and to develop strategies for improvement. Through the program review process,…

In this article, Richard L Dunsworth, president of University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, Arkansas, having spent 25 years in the roles of oversight as consultant evaluator, team chair, advisory team member, peer evaluator, and member of the board of trustees for the largest institutional accreditor in the United States faces the same struggle…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) James Madison University: Reflections on Sustained Excellence in Assessment (Keston H. Fulcher and Elizabeth R. H. Sanchez); (2) Editor's Notes: Assessment Excellence Abounds! (Stephen P. Hundley); (3) The Promise of an All-in-One Assessment System for Student…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Assessment in Postsecondary Chemistry Education: A Comparison of Course Types (Rebecca E. Gibbons, Jessica J. Reed, Shalini Srinivasan, Sachel M. Villafañe, Emily Laga, Joshua Vega, Kristen L. Murphy, and Jeffrey R. Raker); (2) Beyond Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic:…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Exact and Adjacent Inter-rater Agreement Associated with Peer Review of Teaching (Robert Koslow); (2) Examine Assessment of Student Learning outcomes as an Organizational Routine (Antigoni Papadimitriou); (3) Developing a Reliable and Valid Assessment Tool for Online…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Capstone Assessment as Faculty Development (Rowanna L. Carpenter, Seanna M. Kerrigan, and Vicki L. Reitenauer); (2) Using a Doctoral Program Entrance Assessment: Reflections on a Pilot Program and the Admissions Process (Robyne Elder); (3) Highlights of the 2018 HEDS…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Asking the Right Questions: Reflective Preparation for a Program Review (Corinne Renguette, Charles Feldhaus, and Elizabeth Wager; (2) The Neuroscience of Learning and Development: What Does That Mean for Assessment and Evaluation? (Marilee Bresciani Ludvik); (3)…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Lessons Learned: Graduate Student Assessment (Michael Cherry and Lesley Page); (2) Assessing the Assessor: A Response to Fulcher and Bashkov's "Do We Practice What We Preach? The Accountability of an Assessment Office" (Christine Robinson, John G. M.…