The Role of Generic Skills in Measuring Academic Quality

The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate why measuring student learning outcomes in undergraduate education is essential to understanding the concept of academic quality, including its critical role in measuring and improving academic quality. This aim is supported by addressing five topics: (1) the link between the generic-skills concept and the human-capital approach; (2) understanding the case for standardized assessment; (3) understanding the reliability and validity of generic-skills assessment (with evidence from the Collegiate Learning Assessment [CLA] and the CLA+); (4) understanding the main barriers that need to be overcome; and (5) reframing the uses of generic-skills tests (i.e., understanding the current benefits of generic-skills assessment, and their important new uses). The five topics are designed as building blocks that fit together. This chapter focuses solely on why the measurement of student learning is essential to understanding the larger topic of academic quality.