State Policies for Assessing Student Outcomes

Abstract

Since late 1960s concerns have been articulated in various forums over quality and public accountability of institutions of higher education. Journal articles, state and national commissions, educational organizations, and agencies, public as well as private, have asserted need for colleges and universities to provide clear and broadly acceptable measures of what they do and how well they do it [3, 34, 62, 71, 83]. In 1960s and 1970s accountability tended to be strongly influenced by efforts to systematize and measure resources committed to institutions of higher education and subsequently to analyze quantitative indicators of productivity, such as ratios of income or expenditure per full-time equivalent student, program productivity (in numbers of graduates), or faculty workload and productivity [13, 50, 53, 82, 84, 85]. Accountability was closely identified with efficiency as a function of institutional productivity at a defined level of resource investment [9, 83, 95]. As described by Bowen, the efficiency of system is by comparing outcomes with resources employed . . . accountability is achieved when outcomes, as well as resources used are identified and measured [8, p. 7]. In 1980s such interests did not abate but shifted toward obtaining evidence of quality and effectiveness of colleges and universities in educating students [35, 43, 49, 78]. Although institutional quality in