Through assessment, educators meet responsibilities to students and to the public. Assessment is most effective when undertaken in an environment that is receptive, supportive, and enabling. Assessment is the systematic collection, review, and use of information about educational programs undertaken for the purpose of improving student learning and development. The emphasis is on programs rather than individual students. Assessment provides information about students as a group and enables educators to examine whether a curriculum makes sense in its entirety and whether students, as a result of all of their experiences, have the knowledge, skills, and values that graduates should possess.
Assessment asks questions about what is working and to what effect.
An institution of higher education uses the process of assessment to determine what evidence exists in that institution about student learning. Levels at which assessment may be performed include the educational system, an entire institution, a college, school, department, classroom or the individual student, or at any combination of these. Assessment is a crucial, and ongoing, activity that puts student learning at the heart of the process through which an institution does business. Assessment is not an end in itself but a vehicle for educational improvement. Regional accreditation agencies are in the forefront of demands for credible evidence of higher education's effectiveness.