GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING Submitted to State Council for Action SCHEV Task Force on Assessment

The assessment of student learning outcomes is not new to the Commonwealth’s system of higher education. For more than two decades, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) has collaborated with Virginia’s thirty-nine public colleges and universities on assessment as an integral component of a larger, shared commitment to institutional effectiveness and public accountability. In 1985, Senate Joint Resolution 125 directed SCHEV to “investigate means by which student achievement may be measured to assure the citizens of Virginia the continuing quality of higher education in the Commonwealth. ” SCHEV responded by outlining its first assessment guidelines in Senate Document No. 14, “The Measurement of Student Achievement and the Assurance of Quality in Virginia Higher Education. ” In this document, SCHEV recommended that “all state-supported institutions of higher education establish procedures and programs to measure student achievement ” and that these procedures and programs “recognize the diversity of Virginia’s public colleges and universities, the tradition of institutional autonomy, and the capacity of faculty an