So, You Want to Be a Higher Education Assessment Professional? What Skills and Dispositions are Essential?
By Jennifer Ann Morrow, PhD.
What does it take to be a competent higher education assessment professional? What skills and dispositions are needed in order to be successful in this field? I would get asked this question a lot from my students and while many times my go to answer is “it depends”, that answer would not suffice in preparing my students for this career path. So in order to give them a more comprehensive answer to this question I went to the literature.
Although I have been teaching emerging assessment and evaluation professionals for the past 22 years and at various times coordinating both a Ph.D. and certificate program in Evaluation Statistics and Methodology I didn’t want to rely on just what our curriculum focuses on to answer their question. We educate students with diverse career paths (e.g., assessment professional, evaluator, faculty, data analyst, psychometrician) so our curriculum touches upon skills and dispositions across a variety of careers. Therefore, I delved deeper into the literature to give my students a more focused answer for their chosen career path.
Guess what I found…. “it depends!”. There was little to no consistency or agreement within our field as to what are the essential competencies needed in order to be competent as a higher education assessment professional. So, depending on who you asked and what source you read the answer was different. While some sources touched upon needed knowledge and skills very few discussed dispositions that were essential to our professional practice. So my curious mind was racing and after some long discussions and reviewing literature with one of my fabulous graduate students, Nikki Christen, we started compiling lists of needed skills and dispositions from the literature. We soon realized that we needed to hear from higher education assessments professionals themselves to figure out what skills and dispositions were needed. So, a new research project was born! We brought on two other fabulous assessment colleagues, Dr. Gina Polychronopolous and Dr. Emilie Clucas Leaderman, and developed a national survey project to assess higher education assessment professionals’ perceptions of needed skills and dispositions in order to be effective in their job. I wanted to be able to give my students a better answer than “it depends!”.
You can check out our article (https://www.rpajournal.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/A-Snapshot-of-Needed-Skills-RPA.pdf) for detailed information on our methodology and results for this project. We had 213 higher education assessment professionals from across the country rate the importance of 92 skills and 52 dispositions for our field. I’ll briefly summarize the results here and then offer my suggestions to those who are interested in this career path.
Summary of Needed Skills
We found that the most important skills were interpersonal ones! Collaborating with others on assessment, developing collaborative relationships with stakeholders, and working with faculty on assessment projects were the highest rated skills. One participant even stated, “assessment is about people!”. Building relationships, collaboration, facilitation, and communication were all salient themes here. Other skills that were highly rated related to disseminating information. Communicating assessment results to stakeholders, communicating assessment results in writing, and disseminating assessment results were all highly related by higher education assessment professionals. Leadership skills were also deemed highly important by participants. Advocating for the value of assessment, developing a culture of assessment within an organization, facilitating change in an organization using assessment data were all seen as key skills. Project management was also rated as highly important to be competent in this field. Managing time, managing projects, and managing people were highly valued skills by participants. Various aspects of assessment design, developing assessment tools, data management, engaging in ethical assessment were also highly rated. One unexpected finding was that teaching experience was mentioned by a number of assessment professionals as a needed skill in the open-ended responses (Ha, the educator forgot to ask about teaching!).
Summary of Needed Dispositions
Many dispositions were rated as highly important by our participants. One mentioned, “personally I feel dispositions are more vital than technical skills. You can learn the techniques but without the personality, you will have trouble motivating others!”. Interpersonal dispositions such as collaborative, honest, helpful, inclusive, and support were deemed highly important dispositions to have. Responsiveness was also highly rated. Dispositions like problem solver and adaptable were found to be highly important. Having a consistent work approach was important. Dispositions such as trustworthy, reliable, ethical, analytical, detail oriented, and strategic were highly rated in this category. Expression related dispositions were also seen as important. Being transparent, articulate, and professional were all highly rated. Other themes that emerged from the open-ended responses were flexibility, patience, ‘thick skin’, and ‘it depends’ (seriously, I didn’t even prompt them for that response!).
Next Steps: Starting Your Journey as a Higher Education Assessment Professional
So now what? Now that you have some idea of what skills and dispositions are needed in order to be successful as a higher education assessment professional, what are your next steps? My advice is threefold: read, engage, and collaborate. Read the latest articles in the leading assessment journals (see list below). Here you will find the latest trends, the leading scholars, and suggestions for all the unanswered questions that still need to be explored in our field. Engage in learning and networking opportunities in our field. Attend the many conferences, webinars and trainings (some are free!), and join a professional organization and get involved. The Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE) is one of my homes. They have always been welcoming, and I’ve made great connections by attending events and volunteering. Reach out to others in our field for advice, to discuss research/interests, and possible collaborations. Post a message on the ASSESS listserv asking for advice or to connect with others that have similar research interests. There are many ways to learn more about our field and to get involved…just put yourself out there. Good luck on your journey!
References and Resources
Christen, N., Morrow, J. A., Polychronopoulos, G. B., & Leaderman, E. C. (2023). What should be in an assessment professionals’ toolkit? Perceptions of need from the field. Intersection: A Journal at the Intersection of Assessment and Learning. https://aalhe.scholasticahq.com/article/57789-what-should-be-in-an-assessment-professionals-toolkit-perceptions-of-need-from-the-field/attachment/123962.pdf
Gregory, D., & Eckert, E. (2014, June). Assessment essentials: Engaging a new audience (things student affairs personnel should know or learn). Paper presented at the annual Student Affairs Assessment and Research Conference, Columbus, OH.
Hoffman, J. (2015). Perceptions of assessment competency among new student affairs professionals. Research & Practice in Assessment, 10, 46-62. https://www.rpajournal.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/A4.pdf
Horst, S. J., & Prendergast, C. O. (2020). The Assessment Skills Framework: A taxonomy of assessment knowledge, skills and attitudes. Research & Practice in Assessment, 15(1). https://www.rpajournal.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/The-Assessment-Skills-Framework-RPA.pdf
Janke, K. K., Kelley, K. A., Sweet, B. V., & Kuba, S. E. (2017). Cultivating an assessment head coach: Competencies for the assessment professional. Assessment Update, 29(6). doi:10.1002/au.30113
Polychronopoulos, G. B., & Clucas Leaderman, E. (2019). Strengths-based assessment practice: Constructing our professional identities through reflection. NILOA Viewpoints. Retrieved from https://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Viewpoints-Polychronopoulos-Leaderman.pdf
AALHE: https://www.aalhe.org/
AEFIS Academy: https://www.aefisacademy.org/global-category/assessment/?global_filter=all
Assess Listserv: https://www.aalhe.org/assess-listserv
Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/caeh20
Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/caie20
Assessment Institute: https://assessmentinstitute.iupui.edu/
Assessment Update: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15360725
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability: https://www.springer.com/journal/11092
Emerging Dialogues: https://www.aalhe.org/emerging-dialogues
Intersection: A Journal at the Intersection of Assessment and Learning: https://www.aalhe.org/intersection
JMU Higher Education Assessment Specialist Graduate Certificate: https://www.jmu.edu/pce/programs/all/assessment/index.shtml
Journal of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness: https://www.psupress.org/journals/jnls_jaie.html
Journal of Assessment in Higher Education: https://journals.flvc.org/assessment
Online Free Assessment Course: http://studentaffairsassessment.org/online-open-course
Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/pare/
Research & Practice in Assessment: https://www.rpajournal.com/
Rider University Higher Education Assessment Certificate: https://www.rider.edu/academics/colleges-schools/college-education-human-services/certificates-endorsements/higher-education-assessment
Ten Trends in Higher Education Assessment: https://weaveeducation.com/assessment-meta-trends-higher-ed/
Weave Assessment Resources: https://weaveeducation.com/assessment-accreditation-webinars-ebooks-guides/?topic=assessment