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The team of negotiators working on the Department of
Education's proposals for substantially revising rules
affecting the accreditation process and encouraging innovation will
have to face a very basic problem: defining "student
success."
The team of negotiators working on the Department of
Education's proposals for substantially revising rules
affecting the accreditation process and encouraging innovation will
have to face a very basic problem: defining "student
success." (See our blog post,
Accreditation and Innovation Neg Reg Opens to Controversy over
Significant ED Proposals) There are few topics that have so
completely engaged higher education, both internally and among
policy makers. In recent years, countless campus meetings,
institutional studies, conference sessions and faculty discussions,
not to mention legislative and congressional hearings and
regulatory proposals, have focused on how to measure, evaluate and
improve student success. Terms like "outcomes,"
"completion" and "gainful employment" are used,
often interchangeably, as proxies for what constitutes student
success and how it should be measured. Yet, the relevance of those
measures, such as they are, to the reality of student success from
the perspective of the students themselves remains uncertain.
In a recent white paper, Defining Student Success Data: Recommendations for
Changing the Conversation, the largest of the regional
accrediting commissions, the Higher Learning Commission, argues
that the assumption there is a commonly accepted basis to measure
student success is not only inaccurate, but also is one of the
primary reasons why colleges and universities continue to struggle
to develop strategies to address this issue. The HLC commissioners
have sought to cast the discussion in a different light by asking
an increasingly complex question: Who are today's learners, and
what are they seeking?
While there is widespread discussion of innovative programs,
multiple and rapidly evolving methods of delivering learning,
including online, the growth of competency-based education and the
importance of big data and evidence-driven practices, the
commission paper notes the recognition of the changing landscape is
less often reflected in the strategies employed to track, measure
and define student success. Significantly, the paper observes that
today's students engage with higher education in ways that have
changed significantly in recent decades, notably the continuing
trend that fewer students, particularly among 18- to 24-year-olds,
actually complete an undergraduate degree – whether associate
or baccalaureate – in the traditional two or four years of
full-time study. Yet, the report observes that the higher education
community and those who oversee its finances continue to see the
completion of a degree program at a single institution within a
specified timeframe as paramount evidence of student success.
The HLC paper makes a very strong statement: "Currently
used completion metrics and approaches privilege not only certain
types of learners, but also certain types of institutions and
programs." The commission suggests a shift of focus –
and hence the definition of student success – from completion
metrics focused solely on institutions to a flexible framework that
views success from the student perspective, one that is often
framed as the desire to obtain skills and competencies that are
valued in the marketplace, which may or may not lead to or require
the completion of a conventional academic degree. The report
observes that the emergence of boot camps, stackable credentials
and micro-degrees may be indicative of the changing needs of
students, employers and the larger society. Ultimately, the paper
concludes, the institutional and public policy response must be
determined by understanding learners and their needs and poses a
series of questions to stimulate data-driven conversations about
the current realities in which colleges and universities operate
and the students that they serve. The HLC paper suggests that in
answering these fundamental questions institutions will be able to
formulate intentional, integrated and systematic strategies for
student success. That, it argues, should enable the larger
community, including the public and private sources that finance
higher education, to make better sense of student success and which
institutions are succeeding in its achievement.
Additional information on the HLC student success initiative
will be found in the commission's Student Success Initiatives Link.
Dr. Robin Dasher-Alston, a former senior
executive of one of the largest accrediting organizations, assists
clients in dealing with the complexities of the system of voluntary
accreditation that is a unique characteristic of American
postsecondary education.
Mike Goldstein has been a pioneer in the
development of new and more effective and efficient approaches to
education in general and eLearning in particular through the
creation of innovative approaches to combining the resources and
interests of the various sectors of the education, technology,
financial and governmental communities.
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