After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) opened up new possibilities for how student and school success are defined and supported in American public education. States have greater responsibility for designing and building their assessment and accountability systems. These new opportunities to develop performance assessments are critically important…

This paper describes how a state education system in Australia introduced standards-referenced assessments into its large-scale, high-stakes, curriculum-based examinations in a way that enables comparison of performance across time even though the examinations are different each year. It describes the multi-stage modified Angoff standard-setting…

This is a collection of case studies on the implementation of institutional assessment and evaluation of student outcomes in higher education. The cases are drawn from eleven institutions. Research universities and four-year colleges included were: Clemson University (South Carolina), State University of New York (Albany), University of Kentucky…

This guide is intended for college and university administrators responsible for designing and implementing a model for assessment of student outcomes and institutional effectiveness. The first chapter explains use of the handbook and introduces the institutional effectiveness paradigm on which it is based. The second chapter explains the model…