Searching for the Holy Grail of learning outcomes - Kris Olds, Inside Higher Ed

Ministries of education along with critics of higher education institutions want real proof of student “learning outcomes” that can help justify large national investments in their colleges and universities. How else to construct accountability regimes with real teeth? But where to find the one-size-fits-all test? In the US, there is a vehicle that claims it can do this – the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) test. In its present form, the CLA is given to a relatively small sample group of students within an institution to supposedly “assess their abilities to think critically, reason analytically, solve problems and communicate clearly and cogently.” The aggregated and statistically derived results are then used as a means to judge the institution’s overall added value. In the words of the CLA’s creators, the resulting data can then “assist faculty, department chairs, school administrators and others interested in programmatic change to improve teaching and learning, particularly with respect to strengthening higher order skills.”