Assessment and teaching improvement in higher education: investigating an unproven link

2019-04-11Calls for evidence of what students know and are able to do as a result of their college experiences have grown over the last thirty years. As a result, assessment activity on campuses has increased dramatically. Campuses often undertake assessment with the hope of both meeting accountability demands and improving student learning. Underlying these hopes for improvement is an often implicit assumption that assessment of student learning will lead to instructional improvement. However, there is very little empirical evidence that assessment does actually improve teaching, and little is known about the relationship between assessment and teaching more broadly. This study was designed to examine how assessment shapes teaching at two research universities. Using a systems theory perspective, this multiple-case study examined the link between assessment and teaching improvement among individual faculty, departments, and institutions. The findings provide an overview of assessment activity at each level of the system and how it shaped change (or lack of change) to the teaching and learning environment. The study also includes a detailed overview of levers for change at each level (individual, departmental, and institutional), as well as relationships and influences across levels. Based on these findings it appears that assessment has the potential to improve teaching at research universities, but it is complicated. Teaching improvement does not automatically result once institutions engage in assessment. Rather, a particular approach to assessment can foster teaching improvement, and attention to multiple supportive levers across all levels of the system is necessary to drive change