5 Core Components of an Assessment Plan in Higher Education

Assessment can be defined as the collection, analysis and use of data to make decisions for continuous quality improvement. It is an iterative, collaborative and integrative process. According to Linda Suskie in her book Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide, an institution needs to design an “assessment infrastructure in ways that facilitate not the collection but the use of resulting evidence of student learning.”^[1]

This eBook is the right tool to help you build a comprehensive assessment plan that ultimately helps to improve student learning outcomes no matter how large or small your institution is. Every institution is unique, so how you choose to refer to, approach and implement these five components may vary. The assessment process is continuous—and with each new cycle comes new information, feedback, and lessons learned that should be collected and used to inform your assessment of student learning and academic quality moving forward.

¹  Suskie, L. (2009). Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. Jossey-Bass.