Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning (56)

1. The assessment of student learning begins with educational values. Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Educational values should drive not only what we choose to assess but how we do so.

2. Assessment is most effective when it reflects an understanding of learning as multidimensional, integrated, and revealed in performance over time. Assessment should employ a diverse array of methods, including those that call for actual performance, using them over time so as to reveal change, growth, and increasing degrees of integration.

3. Assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes. Assessment is a goal-oriented process. Clear, shared, implementable goals are the cornerstone for assessment that is focused and useful.

4. Assessment requires attention to outcomes but also and equally to the experiences that lead to those outcomes. Where students “end up” matters greatly. To improve outcomes, we need to know about student experience along the way. Assessment can help us understand which students learn best under what conditions; with such knowledge comes the capacity to improve the whole of their learning.

5. Assessment works best when it is ongoing not episodic. Assessment is a process whose power is cumulative. Improvement is best fostered when assessment entails a linked series of activities undertaken over time. The point is to monitor progress toward intended goals in a spirit of continuous improvement. Along the way, the assessment process itself should be evaluated and refined in light of emerging insights.

6. Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change. Assessment alone changes little.

7. Through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public. As educators, we have a responsibility to the public to provide information about the ways in which our students meet goals and expectations.