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The Problem with Standardized Assessment
By David Eubanks, in University Business (June 2006)
In an opinion piece in the June issue of University Business, David Eubanks, director of planning, assessment, and information services at Coker College, questions recent proposals to develop national, standardized assessments of student learning in college. Such tests, which have been considered by the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, would most likely be designed to measure the kinds of learning that are essential in the workplace, Eubanks says—skills like writing and critical thinking. But can a single instrument really measure the higher-order abilities that students develop in college?
Eubanks doesn’t think so. Different kinds of institutions, he suggests, need to develop different kinds of assessments—and are better able to develop meaningful assessments than the federal government. Eubanks cites the Faculty Assessment of Core Skills, a test employed at Coker College, as an example of the kind of locally developed assessment tools that colleges and universities are now developing.
The “very existence” of a national test would also pose problems, Eubanks says. Wealthier schools would have an advantage as institutions tried “to maximize their scores by whatever clever means they could devise.” And if the real question that families want answered is how effectively different colleges and different majors will prepare students for well-paying careers, “why not skip the test and its validity problems and cut to the chase?” Data about how much graduates earn already exist in the form of financial aid and tax records, and such data could be aggregated to compare institutions and majors. All federal officials have to do, Eubanks concludes, “is open the books.”
The full text of David Eubanks’s editorial is available online from University Business.
AAC&U has responded to the Spellings Commission in recent statements on accountability and assessment. AAC&U’s board of directors has also issued an official statement on accountability, Our Students’ Best Work: A Framework for Accountability Worthy of Our Mission.
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