VALUE: Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education

Project Description

As institutions are asked to document the quality of student learning and to raise retention and graduation rates, the VALUE project will begin to define, document, assess, and strengthen student achievement of the essential learning outcomes in undergraduate education.  Recognizing that there are no standardized tests for many of the essential outcomes of an undergraduate education, the VALUE project will develop ways for students and institutions to collect convincing evidence of student learning

• drawn primarily from the work students complete through their required curriculum,
• assessed by well-developed campus rubrics and judgments of selected experts, and
• organized in electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) that can be organized and presented in ways appropriate for different audiences.

A project advisory board of leaders in assessment, student development, various disciplines, and e-portfolio development and usage will examine the available research on student achievement of key learning outcomes and identify best practices to achieve and measure student progress. The e-portfolio is an ideal format for collecting evidence of student learning, especially for those outcomes not amenable nor appropriate for standardized measurement.  Additionally, e-portfolios can facilitate student reflection upon and engagement with their own learning across multi-year degree programs, across different institutions, and across diverse learning styles  while helping students to set and achieve personal learning goals.

AAC&U staff, the advisory board and selected campus consultants will conduct a national audit to identify best practices for achieving and assessing essential learning outcomes in the context of the required college curriculum,  while also assembling a collection of rubrics for ascending levels of accomplishment.  Investigating the range of outcomes and the criteria considered critical for assessing student achievement of each outcome will uncover the extent to which there are similarities among campuses.  By identifying outcomes in terms of expectations for demonstrated student learning among disparate campuses, a valuable basis for comparing levels of learning through the curriculum will emerge. This will be especially useful as students, parents, employers and policy makers seek valid representations of student academic accomplishment. E-portfolios provide both a transparent and portable medium for showcasing the broad range of complex ways students are asked to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities for purposes such as graduate school and job applications as well as to benchmark achievement among peer institutions. 

Supported by a grant from The State Farm Companies Foundation and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the project runs May 2007 through April 2010.