ABSTRACT
Increasingly, higher education emphasizes outcomes assessment, and this is particularly true in international higher education. This chapter explains key areas that senior international officers (SIOs) need to know in order to lead and facilitate assessment efforts effectively. There are many different outcomes within internationalization, although at the center of such efforts is a focus on student learning outcomes. In facilitating assessment efforts, international education leaders need to be very clear first on the purpose of assessment. Ultimately, such assessment efforts need to focus on the students, who are at the heart of internationalization efforts. Outcomes assessment, then, looks at changes in students’ awareness, knowledge, skills, and behavior for the purpose of improving students’ learning. Both outcomes assessment and program evaluation can be helpful to international education leaders, as long as leaders clearly understand the differences, and purposes, of the two One of the most crucial roles a leader can have in assessment is leveraging the results effectively.
