Training, materials, best practices

Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses by Trudy W. Banta, Jon P. Lund, Karen E. Black, and Frances W. Oblander, Jossey Bass. 1996.

This text brings together in one volume the best current knowledge of what assessment methods work best and how their principles should be incorporated into all effective assessment efforts, whether at institutional, program, or department levels. Drawing from 165 actual cases and reporting 86 of them in their entirety, the authors illustrate methods and techniques of assessment covering a wide range of objectives in diverse types of institutions.

 

Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers (Second Edition) by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross, Jossey Bass. 1993.

This revised and greatly expanded edition of the 1988 handbook offers teachers at all levels how-to advise on classroom assessment, including: what classroom assessment entails and how it works; how to plan, implement, and analyze assessment projects; twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects; fifty classroom assessment techniques; step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques; and practical advice on how to analyze your data.

 

Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education by Barbara E. Walvoord, Jossey Bass. 2004.

This is "Assessment 101" in a book--a concise and step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others.

 

Portfolio Assessment Uses, Cases, Scoring, and Impact: Assessment Update Collections by Trudy W. Banta (Editor), Jossey Bass..2003.

The articles in this booklet are taken from Assessment Update and present some of the best thinking on portfolio assessment from the leading researchers and practitioners in the field. They show how portfolios, including web-based portfolios, have been used at various institutions to assess and improve programs in general education, the major, and advising, as well as overall institutional effectiveness. These articles explore ways portfolios can be scored, students' perspectives on portfolios, how portfolios changed the faculty culture at one institution, and more.

 

Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment by Barbara E. Walvoord and Virginia Johnson Anderson, Jossey Bass. 1998.

This is written for the faculty member who believes the grading process is a valuable measure of student learning. This hands-on guide for evaluating student work offers an in-depth examination of the linkage between teaching and grading. It uses grades not as isolated artifacts, but as part of a process that, when integrated with course objectives, provides rich information about student learning. The authors reveal how the grading process can also be used for broader assessment objectives, such as curriculum and institutional assessment.

 

Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide by Linda Suskie, Anker. 2005.

Short on background and theory and long on practical advice, this is a plainspoken, informally written book designed to provide sensible guidance for assessment practitioners on virtually all aspects of student assessment, and for faculty who simply want to improve assessments within their classes. Assessing Student Learning presents readers with well-informed principles and options that they can select and adapt to their own circumstances.

 

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses: Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning by Mary E. Huba and Jane E. Freed, Allyn & Bacon. 2000.

The book will help readers see the connection among three powerful trends in higher education today: the focus on learning and learners, the emphasis on the assessment of learning, and the need to continually improve what those in higher education do. The text provides opportunities for readers to make connections with what they already know about assessment, integrate new information with their current knowledge, and try new approaches to enhance the learning of their students.

 

Assessing Student Competence in Accredited Disciplines: Pioneering Approaches to Assessment in Higher Education by Catherine A. Palomba and Trudy W. Banta, Stylus. 2001.

The body of this volume describes how faculty in eight professionally oriented disciplines have developed and practiced assessment on their campuses and the lessons these faculty offer to colleagues in their own and other disciplines.  The book also includes a chapter on the use of authentic assessment within several disciplines on a single university campus, and another chapter about the British quality assurance movement. 

 

Measuring Quality: Choosing Among Surveys and Other Assessments of College Quality by Victor M.H. Borden and Jody L. Zak can be downloaded for free at http://www.airweb.org/page.asp?page=94. 2001.

This report provides advice to college presidents and provosts on using national surveys as part of an institutional self-assessment plan.

 

Overcoming Survey Research Problems: New Directions for Institutional Research, No. 121 by Stephen R. Porter (Editor), Jossey Bass. 2004.

This volume examines an array of survey research problems and best practices, with the aim of providing readers with ways to increase response rates while controlling costs. New technologies for survey administration also provide many different options. This volume discusses these issues in terms of the survey research literature as well as the experiences of practitioners in the field.

 

Writing Test Items to Evaluate Higher Order Thinking by Thomas M. Haladyna, Allyn & Bacon. 1997.

Here’s a book intended to help readers develop better test questions — aimed at measuring their students’ or future students’ higher level thinking abilities such as writing, reading, mathematical or scientific problem solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking.

 

Practical Considerations in Computer-Based Testing (Statistics for Social Science and Public Policy) by Cynthia Parshall, et al, Springer. 2001.

This book emphasizes the practical side of computer-based testing and presents suggestions, information, and ideas for its actual implementation.  It assumes the reader has little or no experience in the implementation of computer-based testing even if familiar with measurement principles.  It covers a range of topics: how to administer, costs to examinees, scoring issues, innovative item types and many other topics in a compact volume.

 

Innovations in Computerized Assessment by Fritz Drasgow (ed.) and Julie B. Olson-Buchanan (ed.), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 1999.

The chapters in this volume are presented as case studies and provide the reader with a range of ideas about this evolving technology.  The applications involve higher education with some crossovers into K-12 and industry.

 

Evaluating Training Programs (3rd Ed) by Donald L. Kirkpatrick and James D. Kirkpatrick, Berrett-Koehler. 2005.

This is a how-to book, designed for practitioners in the training field who plan, implement, and evaluate training programs. The author supplements principles and guidelines with numerous sample survey forms for each step of the process. For those who have planned and conducted many programs, as well as those who are new to the training and development field, this book is a handy reference guide that provides a practical and proven model for increasing training effectiveness through evaluation.

 

Assessment Practice in Student Affairs: An Applications Manual by John H. Schuh and M. Lee Upcraft, Jossey Bass. 2000.

This manual continues the work begun in their earlier book and provides a full range of tools for conducting effective assessments. It begins with an overview of the assessment process and then details a range of methodologies, approaches, and issues--explaining how to use them and when to recruit expertise from other campus sources. Drawing from the latest practice and a wealth of case studies, the authors discuss qualitative assessment, including how to conduct focus groups and how to select and design instruments; and Data collection and analysis, including mailed questionnaires, telephone surveys, and Web-based surveys.

 

Assessing Academic Programs in Higher Education by Mary J. Allen, Anker Publishing, 2004.

This volume grew from workshop efforts of a collegial team on a West Coast campus.  The goal of the book was to assist busy faculty “develop and implement a meaningful, manageable, and sustainable assessment plan that focuses on faculty on attention on student .” (p.ix)

 

Assessment Update is published bimonthly by Jossey Bass.

Articles cover a wide array of assessment related issues, including methods, tools, processes, measures, and design and implementation models. The readers of this publication are academic administrators, campus assessment practitioners, institutional researchers, and faculty from a variety of fields.

 

ITEMS: The Instructional Topics in Educational Measurement Series by National Council on Measurement in Education. Can be downloaded free at http://www.ncme.org/pubs/items.cfm

This website has an array of instructional modules that are designed to be learner-oriented and consist of an abstract, tutorial content, exercises, and annotated references. The teaching aids accompanying most modules are designed to support the use of the instructional modules in teaching and workshop settings by providing supplemental student exercises, references, test items, and figures or masters for transparencies. The hardcopy modules are also available and can be ordered from the NCME Central Office (see website for more details).

 

General Education

The Art and Science of Assessing General Education Outcomes: A Practical Guide by Andrea Leskes and Barbara Wright, AAC&U, Washington, D.C. 2005.

This guide offers practical recommendations for individuals involved with the assessment of general education programs and outcomes on campus. It includes a step-by-step assessment checklist, tips for better assessment, and examples of assessment tools, methods, and rubrics for assessing a variety of key outcomes of a quality general education.

 

Linking Assessment and General Education by James L. Ratcliff, Elizabeth A. Jones, and Steven Hoffman, NCTLA, University Park, PA: 1993.

This publication explains the Coursework Cluster Analytic Model (CCAM) for the assessment of student learning in general education. While on the one hand, it is technical in its writing style, it is very in-depth as to how to set up the model on individual campuses as well as how to set up the model, use the model, and analyze the results from the model

 

Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education by Barbara E. Walvoord, Jossey Bass. 2004.

This is "Assessment 101" in a book--a concise and step-by-step guide written for everyone who participates in the assessment process. This practical book helps to make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to the institution, while at the same time meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others.

 

Advancing Liberal Education: Assessment Practices on Campus by Michael Ferguson, AAC&U, Washington, D.C. 2005.

This short publication presents the stories of six different colleges and universities that have developed innovative programs to advance and assess key liberal education outcomes. Originally written for AAC&U News, these stories--which focus on writing, information literacy, understanding of diversity, critical thinking, quantitative reasoning, and civic engagement--offer models for effective assessment practices. Also included is information about finding additional assessment resources.

 

Creating Shared Responsibility for General Education and Assessment, Peer Review (single issue), AAC&U, Washington, D.C. Fall 2004.

Challenging the widespread notion that general education is something to "get out of the way as soon as possible," this issue explores ways that campuses are now working to cultivate important outcomes across the curriculum and, given the growth in student transfer, across institutions.

 

Assessment as an ongoing process

Assessing for Learning: Building a Sustainable Commitment Across the Institution by Peggy L. Maki, Stylus. 2004.

This book sets the assessment of learning within the twin contexts of: (1) the level of a program, department, division, or school within an institution; and (2) the level of an institution, based on its mission statement, educational philosophy, and educational objectives. Each chapter explores ways to position assessment within program- and institutional-level processes, decisions, structures, practices, and channels of communication.

 

Building a Scholarship of Assessment by Trudy W. Banta, & Associates, Jossey Bass. 2002.

In this book, leading experts in the field examine the current state of assessment practice and scholarship, explore what the future holds for assessment, and offer guidance to help educators meet these new challenges. The contributors root assessment squarely in several related disciplines to provide an overview of assessment practice and scholarship that will prove useful to both the seasoned educator and those new to assessment practice. Ultimately, this book will help convince skeptics who still believe outcomes assessment is a fad and will soon fade away that this is an interdisciplinary area with deep roots and an exciting future.

 

Assessment Essentials: Planning, Implementing, and Improving Assessment in Higher Education by Catherine A. Palomba, Trudy W. Banta, Jossey Bass. 1999.

This step-by-step guide provides the most current practices for developing assessment programs on college and university campuses. Assessment Essentials outlines the assessment process from the first to the last step and is filled with illustrative examples to show how assessment is accomplished on today's academic campuses. It is especially useful for faculty members and others who may be new to the assessment process.

 

Assessing Student Learning and Development: A Guide to the Principles, Goals, and Methods of Determining College Outcomes by T. Dary Erwin, Jossey Bass. 1991.

Based on pioneering assessment work at James Madison University, this volume outlines characteristics of successful assessment programs.

 

Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter by George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt, and Associates, Jossey Bass. 2005.

This book describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.

 

Workshops, conferences, institutes

The Assessment Institute is hosted annually by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) each fall and held at the University Conference Center and Hotel, Indianapolis, Indiana. This workshop has gone on since 1996. Its featured speakers always include Thomas Angelo, Trudy Banta, Douglas Eder, Peter Ewell, Joseph Hoey, George Kuh, and Jeffrey Seybert.

 

AIR Summer Institutes are hosted each summer by the Association for Institutional Research (AIR). While they do not always include the topic of assessment, since the extinction of AAHE and its assessment conference, many professionals are anticipating that AIR will pick up the assessment area in the future. You will want to keep an eye out for this.  

 

NCTLA Assessment Institutes have been hosted by the Center for the Study of Higher Education for over a decade. The National Center for Post Secondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (NCTLA) assessment institutes assists institutions who send campus teams to the event to develop, implement, and enhance their assessment plans.

 

Day-long Seminars are hosted by Alverno College and offered to educators each semester. Each semester, Alverno faculty and staff offer a seminar for other educators to learn more about Alverno's ability-based education and includes general presentations, small group sessions, and informal conversations that encourage discussion of specific problems and response to individual questions.

 

The International Assessment & Retention Conference is hosted by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and will be held June 16 - June 19, 2006 at the J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort, Phoenix, Arizona. Judging from assessment conferences hosted by this organization in the past, this should be an excellent conference to learn more about how to assess student services areas.

 

ETS Invitational Conference is hosted by Educational Testing Services and does not occur every year and may or may not address assessment issues. However, the 2005 conference was held this fall in New York City and addressed such issues as using assessment to improve student learning and teacher quality, formative assessments, and diagnostic assessments.  

 

 

This document was developed collaboratively by:

            Meg Wright Sidle, Director, Institutional Research and Effectiveness, Pikeville College

            Deb Moore, Director, Office of Assessment, University of Kentucky

            Judith Weckman, Director, Institutional Research and Assessment, Berea College

            Sherri Noxel, Director, Academic Assessment, Council on Postsecondary Education