Assessment Glossary
Assessment for Accountability
The assessment of a unit, such as a department, program, or entire institution, used to satisfy external stakeholders, such as accreditation agencies, state government, or the Board of Regents. Results are often compared across similar units and are always summative. An example of this is ABET accreditation in engineering schools, where ABET sets standards that must be met for accreditation.
Assessment for Improvement
Assessment activities designed to feed results directly and immediately back into revising the course, program, or institution with the goal of improving student learning. Both formative and summative assessment data can guide improvements.
Direct Assessment of Learning
Direct assessment measures learning based on student performance or demonstrations of learning itself, such as scoring performance on tests, term papers, or lab skills. It can occur within a course or across courses or years (e.g., comparing writing scores from sophomore to senior year).
Course Embedded Assessment
A means of gathering information about student learning integrated into the teaching-learning process. Results can assess individual student performance or be aggregated to provide information about the course or program. It can be formative or summative, quantitative or qualitative. For example, seniors completing a research paper assessed for advanced information literacy as part of a college-wide outcome.
External Assessment
Use of criteria (rubric) or an instrument developed by an external individual or organization. This assessment is usually summative, quantitative, and often high-stakes, such as the SAT or GRE exams.
Formative Assessment
Formative assessment gathers information or data about student learning during a course or program to guide improvements in teaching and learning. These activities are usually low-stakes or no-stakes; they do not significantly contribute to the final evaluation or grade of the student. For example, posing a question in class and asking for a show of hands is a formative assessment at the class level.
Indirect Assessment of Learning
Indirect assessments use perceptions, reflections, or secondary evidence to infer student learning. Examples include surveys of employers, students’ self-assessments, and admissions to graduate schools.
Institutional Assessment
Uses the institution as the level of analysis. The assessment can be quantitative or qualitative, formative or summative, standards-based or value-added, and used for improvement or accountability. Ideally, institution-wide goals and objectives would serve as a basis for the assessment. For example, an instructor and peer assessment tool could measure how well seniors across the institution work in multicultural teams.
Program Assessment
Uses the department or program as the level of analysis. It can be quantitative or qualitative, formative or summative, standards-based or value-added, and used for improvement or accountability. Ideally, program goals and objectives would serve as a basis for the assessment. For example, assessing how well senior engineering students apply engineering concepts and skills through a capstone project or combining performance data from multiple senior-level courses.
Rubric
A scoring tool that explicitly represents performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into components and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for papers, projects, presentations, performances, group projects, etc., and can serve as scoring guides or to provide formative feedback.
Summative Assessment
Gathering information at the conclusion of a course, program, or undergraduate career to improve learning or meet accountability demands. When used for improvement, it impacts the next cohort of students. Examples include examining student final exams to identify curriculum areas needing improvement or analyzing senior projects for the ability to integrate across disciplines.
Value Added
The increase in learning that occurs during a course, program, or undergraduate education. This can focus on individual students or a cohort. Measuring value-added requires a baseline measurement for comparison, which can be from the same sample of students (longitudinal design) or a different sample (cross-sectional).
* Adapted from the Assessment Glossary compiled by the American Public University System, 2005.