Transformative assessment

Article summary

Transformative assessment is a form of assessment that uses “institution-wide assessment strategies that are based on institutional goals and implemented in an integrated way for all levels (the course, the program, and the institution) to systematically transform teaching and learning.” Transformative assessment is focused on the quality of the assessment instruments and how well the assessment measures achieving of a goal. "The classic approach is to say, if you want more of something, measure it" There is a dialectical aspect to transformative assessment with standardized measures that implicitly claim that learning can be decontextualized and that comparisons of scores across contexts hold meaning. Transformative assessment by its title implies that there is no single absolute standard that can be assessed, and that each context requires its own definition of a successful learning performance. Further, the process of assessment will do much to shape the performance that defines the outcome. Central to transformative assessment, therefore, are the stakeholders (faculty AND students) who engage in the assessment process. Because standardized measures rarely involve faculty who teach or the hearts of the students who learn, they are not transformative.…

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