Stronger Measures of Student Success
are Critical to Accountability
When it come to enhancing programming and boosting student performance, sudent affairs leaders are increasingly
motivated by their own drives for improvement as well as institutional expectations that they engage in system-
atic assessment. Assessment has become a means for examining student affairs activities, determining the outcomes
of student learning, and developing evidence related to student success. But the feasibility, practicality, and appli-
cation of assessment often are limited by the availability of appropriate and functional assessment tools.
The International Center for Student Success and Institutional Accountability (ICSSIA) has undertaken an effort to review,
catalog, and evaluate the usefulness of common assessment tools in higher education. The center’s review of available assessment
tools reveals that the instruments are limited in number, focused more on process than outcomes, and not particularly useful in
generating information to inform a productive and meaningful dialogue about student learning and the achievement of desired
student outcomes. These findings suggest two important and immediate needs: the development of greater institutional capacity for
