The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate why measuring student learning outcomes in undergraduate education is essential to understanding the concept of academic quality, including its critical role in measuring and improving academic quality. This aim is supported by addressing five topics: (1) the link between the generic-skills concept and the human-capital approach; (2) understanding the case for standardized assessment; (3) understanding the reliability and validity of generic-skills assessment (with evidence from the Collegiate Learning Assessment [CLA] and the CLA+); (4) understanding the main barriers that need to be overcome; and (5) reframing the uses of generic-skills tests (i.e., understanding the current benefits of generic-skills assessment, and their important new uses). The five topics are designed as building blocks that fit together. This chapter focuses solely on why the measurement of student learning is essential to understanding the larger topic of academic quality.

Issues in higher education, such as the rising cost of education, career readiness, and increases in the achievement gap have led to a movement toward accountability in higher education. This chapter addresses the issues related to career readiness by highlighting an assessment tool, the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), through two case studies. The first examines the college-to-career space by comparing different alternatives for predicting college success as measured by college GPA. The second addresses an identified market failure of highly qualified college graduates being overlooked for employment due to a matching problem. The chapter concludes with a proposal for a solution to this problem, namely a matching system.

The assessment of student learning outcomes in the tertiary school sector has seen an increase in global popularity in recent years. Measurement instruments that target higher order skills are on the rise, whereas assessments that foster the recall of factual knowledge are declining. The Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) project was designed with the goal of developing a cross-national concept for valid assessment of generic and domain-specific student learning outcomes on an international comparative basis. AHELO and other international comparative assessment systems face numerous methodological challenges that pertain to test design and development, translation, adaptation, student sampling, scoring, reporting, and the validity of score interpretations. The goal of this paper is to generate ideas for the improvement of cross-national research agendas, such as the AHELO project. The main purpose is to focus on the lessons learned from the AHELO feasibility study and other international assessment studies that help inform the research of future multinational educational assessment studies.

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The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a computer administered, open-ended (as opposed to multiple-choice) test of analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication skills. Because the CLA has been endorsed by several national higher education commissions, it has come under intense scrutiny by faculty members, college administrators, testing experts, legislators, and others. This article describes the CLA's measures and what they do and do not assess, how dependably they measure what they claim to measure, and how CLA scores differ from those on other direct and indirect measures of college student learning. For instance, analyses are conducted at the school rather than the student level and results are adjusted for input to assess whether the progress students are making at their school is better or worse than what would be expected given the progress of "similarly situated" students (in terms of incoming ability) at other colleges.

The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a computer administered, open-ended (as opposed to multiple-choice) test of analytic reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication skills. Because the CLA has been endorsed by several national higher education commissions, it has come under intense scrutiny by faculty members, college administrators, testing experts, legislators, and others. This article describes the CLA's measures and what they do and do not assess, how dependably they measure what they claim to measure, and how CLA scores differ from those on other direct and indirect measures of college student learning. For instance, analyses are conducted at the school rather than the student level and results are adjusted for input to assess whether the progress students are making at their school is better or worse than what would be expected given the progress of “similarly situated” students (in terms of incoming ability) at other colleges.