Lip Service or Actionable Insights? Linking Student Experiences to Institutional Assessment and Data-Driven Decision Making in Higher Education

ABSTRACT

Despite an increasing focus on issues of accountability, assessment, and data-driven decision making (DDDM) within the postsecondary context, assumptions regarding their value remain largely untested. The current study uses empirical data from 114 senior administrators and 8,847 students at 57 institutions in five states to examine the extent to which institutional assessment and data-driven decision making shape the experiences of first-year students. Nearly all these schools regularly collect some form of assessment data, and more than half report using assessment data to inform decision making. However, the institutional adoption of policies related to the collection of assessment data or the application of data-driven decision making appears to have no relationship with student experiences or outcomes in the first year of college. Thus, findings from the current study are consistent with the small, but growing, body of literature questioning the effectiveness of accountability and assessment policies in higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• accountability
• data-driven decision making
• higher education
• first-year students
• college
• university

Notes

1. Although we discuss the use of NSSE data extensively in this article’s Limitations section, additional information about the psychometrics of NSSE data is available at http://nsse.indiana.edu/html/psychometric_portfolio.cfm.