Focusing on Educational Quality and Metrics that Matter

Earlier this week, the New Leadership Alliance released "Committing to Quality: Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability," a report that offers four recommendations for implementing evidence-based approaches to student learning in higher education.  The recommendations are broad enough to work at a policy level, and each has four to five guidelines for implementation. 
 
Board members can find a lot of value in these guidelines.  It's easy to agree with the four recommendations for improving student learning (set goals, gather evidence, use evidence, and report evidence and results), but the guidelines can help board members evaluate the application of these recommendations at their institution.  For example, the report suggests the following standards when gathering evidence of student learning:

• Policies and procedures are in place that describe when, how, and how frequently learning outcomes will be assessed.
• Assessment processes are ongoing, sustainable, and integrated into the work of faculty, administrators, and staff.
• Evidence includes results that can be assessed against an externally informed or benchmarked level of achievement or compared with those of other institutions and programs.
• Evidence also includes assessments of levels of engagement in academically challenging work and active learning practices.
• Results can be used to examine differences in performance among significant subgroups of students, such as minority group, first-generation, and non-traditional-age students.

A focus on educational quality and the use of metrics are two issues that AGB endorses for boards: see our Statement on Board Responsibility for the Oversight of Educational Quality and a Trusteeship article about "Making Metrics Matter" for two examples.  An institution's educational mission is at the heart of what it does — so often, we forget that the fiscal and political issues that can consume board attention are the result of working toward the goals of educational quality and student success, not stand-alone problems.  And when board members have a clear, evidence-based understanding of how the institution is meeting its mission, they can best support future growth and success. 
 
As the New Leadership Alliance puts it, "Awarding more degrees will only be meaningful if those degrees reflect a high level of student accomplishment…Paying close attention to student engagement in learning and learning outcomes will likely help students remain enrolled and graduate."  Congratulations to the New Leadership Alliance on the publication of this useful new report.