Assessment isn’t something merely to be endured. The practice, and the benefits it delivers, should be celebrated.
By Joseph Levy
As I was nearing the end of my first year in graduate school, I asked a soon-to-be graduate what advice they had for me as I moved forward. “Make sure to learn about assessment,” they said.
That may not seem like the most inspirational pep talk one could receive. It’s safe to say that assessment is often misunderstood, typically associated with compliance, and often bemoaned in the same vein as going to the dentist. Despite being a required and expected practice for academics and student affairs, assessment is not inherently easy to understand and not high on the list of many graduate students, new hires, or even seasoned professionals. For many, their assessment of assessment is two big thumbs down.
For me, though, the advice struck a resounding chord. I embraced my program’s assessment and evaluation course despite it being one that traditionally confused students. Over the next year, performing assessments opened doors to internships, practicums, and even supplemental income from a nearby community college. As one example, I created a weighted model to reprioritize and identify students with retention risks within the control and ready intervention of the institution, whereas out-of-the-box reporting involved flagging students who were likely to transfer due to our institution not offering their desired major. Instead of meeting with students who were going to leave anyway, the model I created examined more holistic triggers and data points to address student dissatisfaction, negative behaviors, and poor learning outcomes. Pretty cool, right?
In addition, I, with co-authors and alone, published articles in this very magazine about the value of assessment, using rubrics, and how assessment efforts span departments. Seeing my name in print was a nice feather in my cap, but I cared more about having a platform to share important aspects of assessment work with an audience and for a functional area where the information could be applied readily. My hope was that writing about assessment in an approachable and enthusiastic way would motivate others to learn more and apply information to their practice.
Fast-forward more than a decade, and now I, along with Natasha Jankowski, have written a book, Foundations of Assessment: From Theory to Practice, that we believe appeals to, benefits, and supports anyone related to higher education through the lens and power of assessment. Looking back, and considering the current state of higher education, that long-ago advice may be even more prescient today.
People typically do not take issue with assessment’s importance or value. More likely, any lack of enthusiasm is due to faculty and staff being pulled in many directions, consistently asked to do more with less. Assessment is not typically folded into people’s roles and responsibilities, so it may be perceived as an add-on activity. Any additional element introduced to a strained environment with pre-existing juggled tasks does not stand much of a chance to be prioritized. Add in the fact that people typically do not have the solid professional experience or academic preparation necessary to understand, execute, or engage in the work, and one can understand its diminished reputation.
I would argue, however, that – as educators, managers, builders, and leaders – we are intentional in the ways that we strive to support student success, inside or outside the classroom. It behooves us to examine these interventions and the impact they have on students. People are unique, and learning is messy, so one cannot assume that the student experience is either the same between students or precisely as expected. Assessment is a mechanism to validate what student learning (or quality experience) occurred and reflect on that in relation to our expectations. Where we meet or exceed our expectations, we should celebrate our successes and share our good practices with others. Where we fall below expectations, we should try to understand why and take action in hopes of having a better, more successful outcome for future students. When put that way, I can’t imagine anyone pushing back on the importance or value of assessment.
In our book, we begin with the history of assessment, its origins, philosophical underpinnings, and debates within scholarship and active practice. We thought it important to provide the background and circumstances that led us to how assessment practice exists today. In short, assessment has never had the best reputation, but we can make a point to reframe assessment and reorient people to making the work meaningful and manageable. Instead of viewing it as a top-down mandate or accreditation requirement, people should remember it is a matter of fidelity to their work: validating the outcomes and experiences of students after engaging with services and resources.
Early assessment efforts drew parallels with practices in research or evaluation. There can be value there, but it is not typically part of the everyday lived experience of a staff practitioner. Even when factoring in faculty, it used to be a battle to get people to turn in any kind of report. Thanks to increased expectations from accreditors and quality assurance entities, the latest issue in the past decade or so has been meaningful engagement and application of effort. People turn in reports, but they do not necessarily do anything with the results.
The next portion of the book moves from theory to practice, giving details and examples for people who are (or will be) actively engaged in assessment work. Chapters examine practice and essential elements of assessment like learning outcomes, assessment planning, analysis, personalizing the process, and capacity building. Tips, tricks, and examples are given for academic and student affairs practice alike, as assessment can be an equalizer and can provide level footing for transcending departmental or divisional silos.
I have never quite understood why, if one is taking the time to do the work (gather data and write the report), they stop there. The work is occurring regardless, so why not make it as meaningful and personal as can be? After all, assessment yields insights. Comparing outcomes to expectations highlights both what is working well and what isn’t working well and where there can be possible change or improvement. Assessment is also a formal mechanism to be leveraged for fulfilling needs. It can be evidence to reinforce requests for more resources or data to validate previously raised concerns about service gaps and their possible negative impact on students. And it is not all negative; assessment data can provide great evidence to show the extent to which a department or program aids student success.
Despite the promise assessment holds, real challenges certainly do exist. Resource constraints and lack of experience are universal barriers, but not insurmountable. Assessment does not have to be an extremely complex or resource-heavy practice; it does not require specific software or exorbitant amounts of time for the people involved. Moreover, there’s an abundance of literature, how-to resources, and communities of practice and willing professionals to engage so as to learn more and gain experience. One must have the motivation and will to invest.
In the book, we contend that much of that motivation needs to come from strategic leadership in assessment. We make a point to underscore that assessment leadership can come from anyone, from assessment professionals to people of a certain level or professional title. To support this notion, the book explores considerations for leaders, competencies required for culture building, combating a compliance mindset, and prioritizing partnerships as crucial to successful practice.
Campus housing can lead the efforts in this area. For student affairs, housing is the area that typically has robust assessment practices and has had a history of active reporting across institutions. Given the all-encompassing nature of housing, there are learning outcomes and student success implications for personal, professional, academic, social, and safety-related factors. Residential education efforts, health and well-being resources, and capacity building with resident assistants gaining professional competencies are just some of the rich and robust opportunities for assessment. There also tend to be many assessment professionals who formally or informally rise through the assessment ranks from positions within residence life.
Considering the increasing demands for all aspects of higher education to demonstrate a return on investment, the importance of assessment is not expected to diminish.
While challenges to these efforts do exist, they are not excuses to avoid assessment. Rather, I find there are considerations that will make efforts more fruitful. The first is to realize that an abundance of resources is not required for good assessment practice. Though people worry that they do not have enough statistical knowledge or that they lack certain software, a great amount of powerful and impactful assessment work can be done with simple descriptive statistics (i.e., counts, frequencies, means, basic comparisons) and documentation in Microsoft Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. Assessment software is not a requirement for doing good assessment work, and I can say that because I have worked for an educational technology company providing said software earlier in my career and still collaborate with many of them today (not to mention having commendable assessment work at my last two institutions without using any special assessment software). While staff do need to learn and review assessment skills and knowledge, they already likely possess the skillset and technology to properly engage in the work.
In addition, those staff are likely already doing assessment even if they aren’t overtly recognizing it or using that term. Most housing operations have some form of residential education curriculum with pillars, values, or priorities framing the programming and intended goals. Staff can use this information to articulate student learning outcomes, align those to interventions, and start measuring for evidence of student learning. And those who already have learning outcome statements can formalize their alignment to programs, resources, and services, strategically picking what to measure and report on, as one doesn’t have to measure everything all the time. The need and priority for what is assessed will depend on the institution, students, and the respective residential communities’ priorities and populations. The more the approach is personalized to meet needs and environment, the more applicable and meaningful the efforts will be and the more likely it will be to engage and be invested in the work results.
In assessment, along with capturing needs, satisfaction, and quality, professionals should also capture the intended knowledge, skills, and behavior of students that have resulted from engaging in interventions. After all, if an educational speaker discussing the benefits of living in a diverse environment presents to an overflowing room, but more surveyed students comment on the food than on the speaker, that is not an unqualified success. That swing is an operational hit, but a learning miss. Of course, the opposite can be true, too. Perhaps 100% of the attendees are able to describe multiple benefits of living in a culturally diverse environment, but only 20 students showed up for an event planned for 200. This is a learning win and an operational loss. Typically, programmatic measures such as satisfaction are already being collected, but institutions may be missing student learning measures. For example, students completing conduct sanctions may not be happy with the process or outcome, but the focus is more that they learned community expectations and understand their responsibility in certain circumstances so they are not found in (alleged) violations again.
As housing and student affairs professionals measure student learning, they should utilize more than just surveys. Yes, surveys have a time and place. However, there are other valuable resources such as using observation rubrics for educational or social events and reflecting on student behaviors in the hall. Educational programming can measure student learning and impact through knowledge checks such as quizzes, virtual polling, or an old school show of hands. Qualitative data and evidence can even be collected by inviting students to articulate the benefits of engaging in social programming.
Assessment does not have to be an extremely complex or resource-heavy practice; it does not require specific software or exorbitant amounts of time for the people involved.
Assessment doesn’t stop at the residence hall doors. Housing assessment professionals should engage campus partners such as faculty, staff, and administrators from other departments to discover if sharing resources via housing staff, events, or messaging has led to increased student use or appointments made for certain services. A more advanced but extremely valuable data-related effort could be to track attendance and engagement in the hall with academic performance and retention or persistence data. The latter suggestion is an advanced practice, but one that is feasible given existing data sets likely available at institutions, coupled with an interest from many parties to know the answer to such questions.
The book closes by exploring the future of higher education and the promise of assessment’s relevance. Considering the increasing demands for all aspects of higher education to demonstrate a return on investment, the importance of assessment is not expected to diminish. Assessment can be one of the mechanisms to help demonstrate the positive value and impact of a college education.
Throughout the book we integrate the importance of promoting equitable practices, as assessment is a practical means to increase educational equity and help orient people to centering all students and striving for their success in ways that are inclusive and consider the many lived experiences and perspectives of all students. Assessment can be an awesome equalizer across the institution and particularly within student affairs. Learning outcomes can serve as a common language to promote collaboration and engage faculty and staff in discussing student success and challenges, gaining insight into the competencies and skills students are exposed to. After all, students can benefit from anyone and everything they engage with throughout their collegiate journey. Just as they seamlessly move through their experience, faculty and staff should be coming together to best try to solve wicked problems negatively affecting student success.
Thinking back to that fateful advice I received in graduate school, it’s reassuring to see how assessment is becoming more ingrained in campus housing and student affairs. I was pleased to see assessment entrenched as part of the ACUHO-I professional standards and competencies. I remind those who are new to assessment that there are a growing number of educational resources available. Meanwhile, I encourage those with assessment experience not to rest on their laurels. Student needs, educational circumstances, and tools continue to evolve and change. Higher education professionals must make sure that the assessment practice, policy, and approaches also evolve to both help operational effectiveness and best measure and interpret student learning in all its facets and forms. Spreading the good word for assessment will elevate the practice. Who knows? That advice might reach an impressionable grad student out there and send them down a path to fully embrace and authentically engage in assessment. Anything is possible.
Joseph Levy is currently the associate vice provost of accreditation and quality improvement at Excelsior University in Albany, New York. He is also a member of the Student Affairs Assessment Leaders board of directors.
