ABSTRACT
The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate why measuring student-learning outcomes in undergraduate education plays a critical role in measuring and improving academic quality. This aim is supported by addressing five topics that are designed as building blocks that fit together:
The primary focus of the human-capital approach today is on generic skills, linking these two concepts together to form the premise for the full argument.
Measurement scientists argue that any assessment with stakes attached requires comparisons. In turn, this also requires standardized assessments that are known to be reliable—given to students under the same conditions and same time period.
The reliability and validity evidence of the CLA+, a measure of generic skills, appears to be a positive case in point.
The fact that third-party standardized assessments are not welcomed by many department-based faculty should be a concern. This means reliable and valid comparisons are not possible. If standardized assessments were part of a larger suite of academic disciplines that embraced the value system of science and were relevant to understanding academic quality, that might change the situation.
There are important uses of these tests within the university. Equally, there are also new interdisciplinary and global roles for the tests.
