Equity in Assessment

“An assessment process that is not mindful of equity can risk becoming a tool that promotes inequities, whether intentional or not.”

– Montenegro & Jankowski

January 2020, page 4

Assessment is a key component of high-quality educational practice. However, when assessment does not center equity, it can support historic structural inequities by privileging the skills and knowledge of some learners over others. When this happens, equity goals and assessment practices are not well aligned. But this does not have to be the case. Assessment practices can and should be designed to support diverse learners.

Historic thinking is that if we give a group of students the same task in the same way under the same context, differences in performance will be demonstrative of differences in learning. Further, assessment efforts often encourage us to make judgments about the effectiveness of our educational programs based on the aggregate performance of a group of students.

This approach fails to recognize that:

• • • Faculty and other subject matter experts often communicate learning goals and expectations in a language that does not resonate with students or other practitioners.
    • Following past assessment practices without carefully analyzing their origins helps to preserve the status quo and can contribute to inequitable outcomes for different student subpopulations.
    • There are typically many ways that students might demonstrate learning in a specific area. Focusing on a single type of assessment privileges one way of communicating knowledge over others.
    • Aggregate findings can mask important and meaningful differences between student populations.
    • Students and other stakeholders can aid in the meaningful interpretation of findings and the creation of appropriate evidence-informed action plans.

Establishing Equitable Assessment Practices

Establishing equitable program assessment practices is a journey. Both the endpoint and the stops along the way will vary between programs.

Best practice includes:

• • • Involve learners, and other stakeholders, within the development of assessment processes.
    • Ask critical questions regarding the ways in which evidence is collected, interpreted, and disaggregated.
    • Provide learners with multiple and diverse opportunities to demonstrate their subject knowledge. Have clearly stated goals and provide examples to assist students with understanding how to complete the assessment task(s).
    • Share what you find. Ensure evidence can be meaningfully disaggregated and identify the best ways to communicate findings to students and other stakeholders.

Additional Resources

• Bensimon, E. M. (2005). Closing the achievement gap in higher education: An organizational learning perspective. New Directions for Higher Education, 2005(131), 99–111.
• Henning, G.W., Baker, G. R., Jankowski, N. A., Lundquist, A. E., & Montenegro, E. (Eds). (2022). Reframing assessment to center equity: Theories, models, and practices. Stylus.
• Levy, J. (July 20, 2020) How You Can Use Assessment to Strive Toward Equity in Higher Education. Modern Campus.
• Montenegro, E., & Jankowski, N. A. (2020, January).  A new decade for assessment: Embedding equity into assessment praxis (Occasional Paper No. 42). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA).
• National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). (n.d.) Equity in Assessment.