Designing Effective Assessment

Fifteen years ago Trudy Banta and her colleagues surveyed the national landscape for the campus examples that were published in the classic work Assessment in Practice. Since then, significant advances have occurred, including the use of technology to organize and manage the assessment process and increased reliance on assessment findings to make key decisions aimed at enhancing student learning. Trudy Banta, Elizabeth Jones, and Karen Black offer 49 detailed current examples of good practice in planning, implementing, and sustaining assessment that are practical and ready to apply in new settings. This important resource can help educators put in place an effective process for determining what works and which improvements will have the most impact in improving curriculum, methods of instruction, and student services on college and university campuses. Institutional researchers, accreditation committee members, faculty, and all the rest of us working to assess student learning will be inspired by the examples of good practices set in a scholarly context by Banta, Jones, and Black. -Randy L. Swing, executive director, Association for Institutional Research The authors' long and deep experience in assessment has informed this wonderful resource, which combines overarching principles of effective assessment with concrete case studies drawn from diverse institutions. Readers will learn how to go beyond using standardized test scores as the sole measure of learning, how to establish classroom-based assessment, how to use multiple assessment data for improvement, and how to get faculty involved in the process. -Barbara E. Walvoord, author, Effective Grading and Assessment Clear and Simple Higher education's preeminent assessment scholars have done it again, responding to growing requests for assessment models and examples of good practice with an extensive array of meaningful, practical profiles. No matter what your institution's mission, and no matter where you are in the assessment process, you will find a wealth of ideas here. -Linda Suskie, author, Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide