Analytic Framework of Institutional Support for Student Assessment.

From the perspective of scholars and practitioners, an effective student assessment approach gathers information about selected aspects of students ’ characteristics, experiences, and achievements and uses this information to shape institutional policies, processes, and practices in ways that lead to improved student performance and institutional functioning (American Association for Higher Education [AAHE], 1992; Banta & Associates, 1993; Ewell, 1984, 1988b). Since the emergence of the student assessment movement in higher education more than a decade ago, the number of institutions engaged in some form of student assessment activity has steadily increased (El-Khawas, 1988, 1990, 1995). Institutions have differed markedly in their approaches to student assessment (Banta et al., 1996) but few have undertaken comprehensive student assessment programs (El-Khawas, 1990; Hexter & Lippincott, 1990; Johnson, Prus, Andersen, & El-Khawas, 1991). Moreover, concerns have been raised that student assessment efforts often fail to produce discernible impacts on students ’ or institutions ’ performance