The Collegiate Learning Assessment

Setting Standards for Performance at a College or University

Chaitra M. Hardison, Anna-Marie Vilamovska

ResearchPublished Aug 27, 2009

The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a measure of how much students' critical thinking improves after attending college or university. This report illustrates how institutions can set their own standards on the CLA using a method that is appropriate for the CLA's unique characteristics. The authors examined evidence of reliability and procedural validity of a standard-setting methodology that they developed and applied to the CLA. For this task, they assembled nine panels composed of faculty members from participating CLA institutions across the United States. The results of the process were promising. Overall, the three steps of the process produced similar standards for performance, although the authors observed variability across individuals, panels, and different CLA test prompts.

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Hardison, Chaitra M. and Anna-Marie Vilamovska, The Collegiate Learning Assessment: Setting Standards for Performance at a College or University. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2009. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR663.html.
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