Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education

by Barbara E. Fassler Walvoord, Trudy W. Banta (Foreword)

The first edition of Assessment Clear and Simple quickly became the essential go-to guide for anyone who participates in the assessment process in higher education. With the increased pressure to perform assessment to demonstrate accountability, Assessment Clear and Simple is needed more than ever. This second edition of the classic resource offers a concise, step-by-step guide that helps make assessment simple, cost-efficient, and useful to an institution. It contains effective strategies for meeting the requirements of accreditation agencies, legislatures, review boards, and others, while emphasizing and showing how to move from data to actions that improve student learning. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes many new or expanded features, including:

Illustrative examples drawn from the author's experience consulting with more than 350 institutions

A basic, no-frills assessment plan for departments and for general education

Tips on how to integrate portfolios and e-portfolios into the assessment process

Suggestions for using rubrics and alternatives to rubrics, including doing assessment for multidisciplinary work

Clear instructions on how to construct a coherent institution-wide assessment system and explain it to accreditors

Ideas for assigning responsibility for general education assessment

Strategies for gathering information about departmental assessment while keeping the departmental workload manageable

Information on how to manage assessment in times of budgetary cutbacks

Praise for the Second Edition of Assessment Clear and Simple

"Walvoord's approach to assessment is wonderfully straightforward; it is also effective in facilitating faculty engagement in assessment. We've applied a number of her methods to our campus assessment efforts with success. This book makes assessment both manageable and useful in improving and enhancing student learning."--Martha L. A. Stassen, director of assessment, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and president, New England Educational Assessment Network (NEEAN)

"Walvoord's work clearly presents the basics for getting started in assessment of student learning while honestly addressing the complexities of assessment when driven by faculty passion for student learning. This book is a valuable resource for the novice as well as the developing experts who are leading their institutions in academic assessment."--Bobbi Allen, faculty assessment director, Delta College

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Research

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

Reviews

[Lyndsey]

Great primer to for those new to assessment specifically in higher education. I focused on the introductory chapter and the chapter that relates specifically to my role and just read the chapter summaries for the other chapters written for other roles. I borrowed this from my institution's library, but I will be ordering a copy so I can make notes and use it as a reference as I work on assessment projects.

[Kara Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a course on assessment in higher education, we’ve been assigned this 100 page book and a different 300+ page book. I learned far more from this shorter, intentionally simple and structured handbook.

[Lynette Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful for figuring out how to actually apply assessment activities.

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this for a class. If you know nothing about assessment, then it is a really good guide. If you are an "old hand" at assessment, then this isn't a good book for you.

[Suzette Kunz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scintillating. Ha. If you have to read a book about assessment, this one is pretty painless.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a nice high-level overview of program assessment. There are plenty of nuggets in the short case studies and references that even experienced practitioners will find use in the text.