ABSTRACT
In recent years, there has been growing demand for accountability of learning
outcomes in higher education. Accreditation organizations in the United States now
demand that institutions of higher education implement assessments that show what
students are learning. A well-cited report commissioned by the Secretary of Education,
titled “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education” (DOE,
2006) recommends that educational institutions develop methods for assessing learning
outcomes for all students. Technical and professional communication is not an excep-
tion. Many of the faculty members who teach technical and professional communi-
cation have experienced demands from administrators to implement assessments that
measure the effectiveness of their curricula and courses. As a consequence, an increas-
ing number of articles on assessment have been published in the past several years.
Many of them focus primarily on program assessment (for example, Allen, 2004;
Anderson, 1995; Coppola & Elliot, 2007), but some, including early work on assess-
ment, address classroom assessment techniques such as portfolios (Coppola, 1999;
Elliot, Kiduff, & Lynch, 1995) and journals (Bratchell & Mitchell, 1975). Cargile Cook
(2003) also reports the results of a national survey of classroom assessment practices.
