“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust
In 1994, as a teaching assistant in Arizona State University’s English department, I became aware of and then an enthusiastic proponent of what was then considered a controversial movement in higher education: assessment of student learning outcomes. The movement toward assessment of student learning outcomes—at the time mostly championed by a few national experts, teacher education programs and accrediting bodies—was at its heart a learner-centric movement. And utilized that language to make the case for adjusting pedagogy and teacher practice based on documenting and reflecting on what students actually learned.
It is therefore painful for me to report that, in 2024, higher education institutions have made little progress in responding to and reflecting on the data obtained through assessment processes. And while the institutions with more mature assessment programs are operationalizing changes based on the data, many still conduct this work as an episodic and rote exercise that nobody pays attention to, except when accreditors and provosts ask.
This slow-walking of a learner-centric model by many higher education stakeholders has contributed to a lack of preparedness on the part of higher education institutions for these existential and future-focused challenges:
1. Competition from alternative credential providers outside academia
2. Misalignment of academic credentials and degrees with actual workforce needs
3. Misunderstanding and fear of artificial intelligence’s role in higher education
4. Devaluing the documentation and artifacts of demonstrable learning, wherever and whenever this learning occurs
5. Measuring institutional effectiveness and worth by the credit hour
Given changing demographics and dynamic funding models in all sectors of higher education, institutions are now scrambling to identify the strategies necessary to compete with new credential providers, appeal to learners opting out of traditional higher education models and convey the value of degrees and credentials to learners and employers alike. Fortunately, the model for being learner-centric has been hiding in plain sight on college campuses (perhaps not your campus) for decades: assessment of student learning outcomes.
Hallmarks of robust, intentional and change-making learner-centric models of assessment and learning recognize the following:
1. Credit and non-credit terms imply a false dichotomy that harms learners, which is perpetuated by institutional dependence on Title IV funds as determined by “the credit hour.
2. Seat time and residency requirements are not necessarily a measure of learning having occurred.
3. Diverse learning modalities (online, hybrid, ground) that receive strong institutional support enhance learning rather than hinder it.
4. Multiple stakeholders (learners, graduates/alumni, business and industry, community, faculty and staff) collaborating on learning outcomes rather than one entity, such as a department, having ownership of said outcomes and curriculum is essential to alignment and value for learners.
5. Stacking and laddering credentials and degrees within a program with full articulation and visualization of promotability and wage increases in a specific field can center learner intent.
6. Internships, on-the-job learning or cooperative experiences are essential components of any and all credentials and degrees an institution offers.
7. Prior learning assessment policies, practices and operations should be transparent, usable and fair to learners.
In other words, learner-centricity only happens when learners can fully document and communicate the knowledge and skills they have attained—wherever and whenever that learning occurred—to institutions and to employers. It is no longer acceptable for anyone to believe that learning can only occur within the confines of the institution or that we devalue what the learner brings to our institutions. Often, adult and returning learners lose patience with the relearning process of courses and subsequently stop out and do not complete as a result. And institutions that perpetuate this model cannot claim equity as their guiding principle.
While it is neither bold nor audacious to say a focus on student learning outcomes assessment is in order, it is, in fact, a call that few institutional leaders will heed. Interrogating the process for documenting what learners know or can demonstrate and, in turn, institutionalizing and operationalizing the data analysis for assessment seems like an opportunity that cannot wait another thirty years to happen. And the institutions that take this process seriously will thrive.
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