Transformative assessment

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Transformative assessment is a form of assessment that uses “institution-wide assessment strategies that are based on institutional goals and implemented in an integrated way for all levels (the course, the program, and the institution) to systematically transform teaching and learning.” [1] Transformative assessment is focused on the quality of the assessment instruments and how well the assessment measures achieving of a goal. "The classic approach is to say, if you want more of something, measure it" [2]

Educational assessment is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. Assessment data can be obtained from directly examining student work to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or can be based on data from which one can make inferences about learning. Assessment is often used interchangeably with test, but not limited to tests. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole. The word 'assessment' came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.

Contents

There is a dialectical aspect to transformative assessment with standardized measures that implicitly claim that learning can be decontextualized and that comparisons of scores across contexts hold meaning. Transformative assessment by its title implies that there is no single absolute standard that can be assessed, and that each context requires its own definition of a successful learning performance. Further, the process of assessment will do much to shape the performance that defines the outcome. Central to transformative assessment, therefore, are the stakeholders (faculty AND students) who engage in the assessment process. Because standardized measures rarely involve faculty who teach or the hearts of the students who learn, they are not transformative.

This is unlike Student-centered learning, where the focus is on the needs of the student, and also unlike Standards-based assessment where the focus is on the institution achieving a specific level of learner proficiency. Neither of those strategies help the institution to reform at all levels.

In an educational setting, standards-based assessment is assessment that relies on the evaluation of student understanding with respect to agreed-upon standards, also known as "outcomes". The standards set the criteria for the successful demonstration of the understanding of a concept or skill.

History

The Transformational Assessment Project (TAP) was an activity within the EDUCAUSE National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (since renamed the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI)). The project was active from January 2002 to September 2003 and was coordinated by Vicki Suter of EDUCAUSE. Core members were Gary Brown, Darren Cambridge, Steve Ehrmann (The TLT Group), Joan Lippincott (CNI), Patricia McGee, Vicki Suter (NLII) and Robin Zuniga (The TLT Group); Colleen Carmean served as a member during her tenure as NLII 2002 Fellow. Project members made presentations on the work at Educause 2002, NLII 2003 Annual Meeting and the AAHE Assessment conference in 2003. The project produced a rubric for evaluating the transformative potential of an assessment program or plan. While the project produced a tool for assessing the transformative potential of institutional assessment strategies, it did not produce any implementation.

Rubric Dimensions

Assessment Purpose

The assessment plan aligns with other institutional plans and promotes a collaboration of administration, faculty, students, and community.

Data Acquisition & Analysis

Data from multiple and diverse sources illuminate students’ learning, learning processes, and learning purposes, particularly learning as those aspects of learning extend beyond course- specific outcomes.

Application of Findings

The assessment findings are used to systematically inform and reshape teaching and learning practice to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and/or value, and specifically to promote an operational “culture of evidence” (e.g., influence promotion and tenure decisions).

Dissemination

Results are reported internally and externally with plans for expanding the collaboration for transformation.

Implementations

Washington State University public university in Pullman, Washington, USA

Washington State University is a public research university in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is a land-grant university with programs in a broad range of academic disciplines. With an undergraduate enrollment of 24,470 and a total enrollment of 29,686, it is the second largest institution of higher education in Washington state behind the University of Washington.

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Assessment is a systemic process in higher education that uses empirical data on student learning to refine programs and improve student learning. As a continuous process, assessment establishes measurable and clear student learning outcomes for learning, provisioning a sufficient amount of learning opportunities to achieve these outcomes, implementing a systematic way of gathering, analyzing and interpreting evidence to determine how well student learning matches expectations, and using the collected information to inform improvement in student learning. Assessment functions as part of a continuous process whereby the parts of the cycle are revised and monitored. The term “assessment” is defined broadly in that any outcome or goal in any activity or discipline can be a part of this process.

References

  1. ↑ Transformative Assessment Archived November 6, 2007, at the Wayback Machine .
  2. ↑ Kent McSparran in Say Good-bye to the Weakest Link With Supply-Chain Metrics [ dead link ]
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