Measuring College Learning Responsibly

Measuring College Learning Responsibly
Author: Richard Shavelson
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0804761205

This book examines current practices in assessment of learning and accountability at a time when accrediting boards, the federal government and state legislatures are requiring higher education to account for such outcomes as student retention, graduation, and learning.

Handbook on Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation in Higher Education

Handbook on Measurement, Assessment, and Evaluation in Higher Education
Author: Charles Secolsky
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 1112
Release: 2017-07-31
Genre: Education
ISBN: 131748553X

In this valuable resource, well-known scholars present a detailed understanding of contemporary theories and practices in the fields of measurement, assessment, and evaluation, with guidance on how to apply these ideas for the benefit of students and institutions. Bringing together terminology, analytical perspectives, and methodological advances, this second edition facilitates informed decision-making while connecting the latest thinking in these methodological areas with actual practice in higher education. This research handbook provides higher education administrators, student affairs personnel, institutional researchers, and faculty with an integrated volume of theory, method, and application.

The Challenge of Independent Colleges

The Challenge of Independent Colleges
Author: Christopher C. Morphew
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1421424312

Weerts, Cynthia A. Wells, Letha Zook--William T. Luckey, President, Lindsey Wilson College

Measuring Quality of Undergraduate Education in Japan

Measuring Quality of Undergraduate Education in Japan
Author: Reiko Yamada
Publisher: Springer Science & Business
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2014-04-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9814585815

This book explores how the global trend of quality assurance in higher education is related to the boom of measuring learning outcomes in Japan. It also presents a comparative study in higher education policy between Japan and the US, examining how both countries have reacted to the demands of globalization. This comparative view will help readers understand the present issues Japanese higher education faces and grasp the commonalties and differences between American and Japanese higher education. The book first explores the forces of globalization that have resulted in Japanese universities emphasizing student learning outcomes. Next, it examines how Japanese higher education has learned from the experience of the U.S., whose higher education reform has been regarded as a model for Japan. The book explains why quality assurance for teaching and learning has become important for all Japanese higher education institutions. Higher Education on a global basis is now facing a great issue. In order to help students in a competitive global market, universities need to become more teaching-and-learning-centered and develop more internationalized curricula. This book provides comparative views for cultural and structural similarities and differences in higher education in two countries which could explain significant differences in the gains students make in college. It will help readers understand not only how student learning outcomes can be measured, but why universities throughout the world must continually strive to become world-class institutions.

Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education

Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education
Author: Sigrid Blömeke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2013-04-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9460918670

Measuring competencies acquired over the course of higher education is an area of research that largely has been neglected. This deficit can be attributed to the complexity of academic competencies since the variety of institutions, programs, occupational fields and job requirements render it difficult to define and even harder to measure outcomes. Thus, assessing the preconditions for and effects of competency development is a challenge methodologically. In this book, a comprehensive review of the international state of research on modeling and measuring competencies in higher education across several academic disciplines is presented, along with an evaluation of the field’s strengths and weaknesses. Renowned experts share insight into the most important recent research projects and point out controversies and challenges. Competencies are regarded as context-specific dispositions acquired and required to cope successfully with domain-specific situations and tasks. However, the range of these dispositions is controversial. Should only cognitive facets be included or is it important to consider attitudes as well? Insufficient response rates and panel attrition are further challenges, as are the limitations of paper-and-pencil approaches to the complex measurement of higher education outcomes. Thus, this book may serve as a platform for the exchange of research experiences and perspectives and hopefully will instigate improvements in research into higher education.

The Convergence of K-12 and Higher Education

The Convergence of K-12 and Higher Education
Author: Christopher P. Loss
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1612509843

In The Convergence of K–12 and Higher Education, two leading scholars of education policy bring together a distinguished and varied array of contributors to systematically examine the growing convergence between the K–12 and higher education sectors in the United States. Though the two sectors have traditionally been treated as distinct and separate, the editors show that the past decade has seen an increasing emphasis on the alignment between the two. At the same time, the national focus on outcomes and accountability, originating in the K–12 sector, is exerting growing pressure on higher education, while trends toward privatization and diversification—long characteristic of the postsecondary sector—are influencing public schools. This volume makes the powerful case that it is no longer possible to think of one sector in the absence of the other, given the economic, demographic, and technological forces that are pushing the educational system toward convergence. Taken together, the chapters in this book provide a promising new line of inquiry for examining contemporary questions in education policy.

Research Handbook on Quality, Performance and Accountability in Higher Education

Research Handbook on Quality, Performance and Accountability in Higher Education
Author: Ellen Hazelkorn
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 613
Release: 2018-07-27
Genre: Education
ISBN: 178536975X

As higher education becomes a key determinant for economic competitiveness, institutions face increasing pressure to demonstrate their fitness to meet the needs of society and individuals. Blending innovative research with richly contextualised examples this unique Research Handbook provides authoritative insights from around the globe on how best to understand, assess and improve quality, performance and accountability in higher education.

Higher Education in America

Higher Education in America
Author: Derek Bok
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2015-03-22
Genre: Education
ISBN: 140086612X

A sweeping assessment of the state of higher education today from former Harvard president Derek Bok Higher Education in America is a landmark work--a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today. At a time when colleges and universities have never been more important to the lives and opportunities of students or to the progress and prosperity of the nation, Bok provides a thorough examination of the entire system, public and private, from community colleges and small liberal arts colleges to great universities with their research programs and their medical, law, and business schools. Drawing on the most reliable studies and data, he determines which criticisms of higher education are unfounded or exaggerated, which are issues of genuine concern, and what can be done to improve matters. Some of the subjects considered are long-standing, such as debates over the undergraduate curriculum and concerns over rising college costs. Others are more recent, such as the rise of for-profit institutions and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Additional topics include the quality of undergraduate education, the stagnating levels of college graduation, the problems of university governance, the strengths and weaknesses of graduate and professional education, the environment for research, and the benefits and drawbacks of the pervasive competition among American colleges and universities. Offering a rare survey and evaluation of American higher education as a whole, this book provides a solid basis for a fresh public discussion about what the system is doing right, what it needs to do better, and how the next quarter century could be made a period of progress rather than decline.

Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation

Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation
Author: Frank Fischer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2018-06-13
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351400428

Competence in scientific reasoning is one of the most valued outcomes of secondary and higher education. However, there is a need for a deeper understanding of and further research into the roles of domain-general and domain-specific knowledge in such reasoning. This book explores the functions and limitations of domain-general conceptions of reasoning and argumentation, the substantial differences that exist between the disciplines, and the role of domain-specific knowledge and epistemologies. Featuring chapters and commentaries by widely cited experts in the learning sciences, educational psychology, science education, history education, and cognitive science, Scientific Reasoning and Argumentation presents new perspectives on a decades-long debate about the role of domain-specific knowledge and its contribution to the development of more general reasoning abilities.

The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges

The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges
Author: Derek Bok
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0691177473

Why efforts to improve American higher educational attainment haven't worked, and where to go from here During the first decade of this century, many commentators predicted that American higher education was about to undergo major changes that would be brought about under the stimulus of online learning and other technological advances. Toward the end of the decade, the president of the United States declared that America would regain its historic lead in the education of its workforce within the next ten years through a huge increase in the number of students earning “quality” college degrees. Several years have elapsed since these pronouncements were made, yet the rate of progress has increased very little, if at all, in the number of college graduates or the nature and quality of the education they receive. In The Struggle to Reform Our Colleges, Derek Bok seeks to explain why so little change has occurred by analyzing the response of America’s colleges; the influence of students, employers, foundations, accrediting organizations, and government officials; and the impact of market forces and technological innovation. In the last part of the book, Bok identifies a number of initiatives that could improve the performance of colleges and universities. The final chapter examines the process of change itself and describes the strategy best calculated to quicken the pace of reform and enable colleges to meet the challenges that confront them.