As you might imagine, neither the definition of assessment nor the terminology used to discuss it is uniform across all institutions (or even within single institutions).

Here is the AAHE’s (American Association for Higher Education) Assessment Forum’s gloss on Assessment:

In the spring of 1995, Thomas A. Angelo, then director of the AAHE Assessment Forum, suggested it was time to "reassess assessment in higher education" (Angelo, April 1995, p.11). He presented a draft definition of assessment and solicited responses. Colleagues were invited to comment, revise, and expand the definition. The draft definition was as follows:

Assessment is a means for focusing our collective attention, examining our assumptions, and creating a shared culture dedicated to continuously improving the quality of higher learning. Assessment requires making expectations and standards for quality explicit and public; systematically gathering evidence on how well performance matches those expectations and standards; analyzing and interpreting the evidence; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance (Thomas A. Angelo, AAHE Bulletin, April 1995, p.11).

As promised, Angelo took seriously the feedback he received. Five themes emerged from the contributions:

o Assessment should focus on improving student learning;
o The focus of assessment should not be limited to the classroom, but include the wide range of processes that influence
     learning;
o Assessment is a process embedded within larger systems;
o Assessment should focus collective attention and create linkages and enhance coherence within and across the
     curriculum; and
o Tension between assessment for improvement and assessment for accountability must be managed.

The revised definition reads as follows:

Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance. When it is embedded effectively within larger institutional systems, assessment can help us focus our collective attention, examine our assumptions, and create a shared academic culture dedicated to assuring and improving the quality of higher education (Thomas A. Angelo, AAHE Bulletin, November 1995, p.7).

See <http://www.aahe.org/assessment/assess_faq.htm#Internet1> for additional and institution-specific definitions offered by the AAHE.

Descriptions of the process of assessment also proliferate. Allowing for variations, it is accurate to say that the process exhibits the following features:

1. You decide what skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes a student will acquire as a result of a learning experience.

2. You articulate or describe the performance indicators that will tell you if the student has, indeed, acquired the
     intended skills, knowledge, and/or attitude intended.

3. You devise a means of measuring or detecting the performance indicators you identify as evidence of learning. (These
     “means” are often called assessment instruments or measures.)

4. You apply or conduct your assessment measures or instruments.

5. You analyze or otherwise consider the results of your assessment.

6. You employ the results of your assessment to drive reflection upon and, perhaps, refinement of the design of the original
     educational experience. (This is the “closing the loop” part.)

The “you” in this instance could be a single instructor in his or her classroom, a department, or an entire institution. The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has a 2-loop process for assessment that involves input from “constituents” (i.e., consumers of the program’s graduates) as a critical process. For more information on how ABET views assessment, see
<http://www.abet.org/twoloops.html> or view the resources in the “Engineering Assessment at SDSM&T” section of this site.

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