Accreditation and Student Learning Outcomes: A Proposed Point of Departure. CHEA Occasional Paper

The primary purpose of this document is to provide accrediting organizations with guidance about how to engage evidence of student learning as they establish policies, standards, and approaches to review. As a result, it addresses three main topics: (1) accreditors must be clear about terminology when considering evidence of student learning outcomes; (2) accreditors have to face a number of policy choices about evidence of student learning outcomes; and (3) they will encounter a similar set of issues when examining student learning that need to be identified systematically. Accrediting organizations must be more aggressive and creative in requiring evidence of student learning outcomes as an integral part of their standards and processes for review. The accrediting community must become more vocal and articulate in talking about evidence of student learning outcomes, and each individual accreditor must choose a coherent rationale that underlies its approach to student learning outcomes, and then must use this rationale to explain the procedures it adopts. Accreditors need a language with which to talk with one another about what they are doing. All accreditors would benefit form the development of common resources. The growing body of accreditation experience should be organized for use by the community in common. (SLD)