Measuring student learning does not necessarily answers the questions people want to know about the value of higher education. Tailored assessment serve less to help American to distiguish claims from a diploma mill to that of a genuine institution. Using Professional Service Provider like ETS to proivde assessment services is plausable.
This is a very nice article. The question asked:"whether measuring student learning necessarily answers the questions people want to know about the value of higher education” is a very good one. Young’s statement “We cannot substitute value added for basic competencies” is particularly thoughtful.
Some of the comments on the articles angered about the notion that US Higher Ed haven’t done anything about the accountability. But, this is really not necessary. This is the America, everyone got chances to present their cases.
The question here isn’t about how greate US higher ed is but about how to best serve the American — not just those brightest but the American in general. To most American, they probably not concerned about MIT and Cal Tech at all. But they could well be interested in anything went below those elite institutions.
Tailored assessment is good in fitting the goal of a institution but serve less to help American to distiguish claims from a diploma mill to that of a genuine institution — the example is extreme, but you got the idea. If you have not so bright a kid and you are facing the choices. You will think about the good old consumer market that you know what you are paying for. This is what facing most of the American these days.
The variation in assessments will always be there. But making the result available to public is a big step toward answering people’s question about the value of higher education. Think about those product reviews you find on BestBuy or CircuitCity’s website. They are diverse and probably have no statistical value. But, I found them quite useful.
For institutions that care so much about the accuracy, it may not be a bad idea to provide official info to deter people from judging institutions based on anonymous reviews.
I certainly understand that there are millions of factors to address and there probably no single solution to fit all. But how about the professional certificates, aren’t they some kind of multi-institutional assessments? Wouldn’t those results be good information to answer public’s call for accountability?
Ben J's comments provide a good reason in using Professional Service Provider like ETS to proivde assessment services.
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It's good to see there are a lot of assessement going on. I like what Fayetteville State's Young “We cannot substitute value added for basic competencies.”
The question: "Whether measuring student learning necessarily answers the questions people want to know about the value of higher education ?" is very well asked.
For one, institutions could have more publicly announce these results - but there may be some institution would not publish their result. What public concern is how do we make good investment with their money? What they need is information! It seems to me public is ready to assume their responsiblity in searching for what their money's worth but could not find enough information. When you searching for a DVD player, you do the research and make the decision. Once you made the decision, in general, there is not much you can complain about since you made that decision on what price and feature you are willing to pay for it.
Of cause students learn things at their work place, but if what they learn at work place contribute in any significant amout to the said measure, I can only say the measurement isn't a good one in measuring values provided by that institution.
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