A Conceptual Framework of Evidence Collection for Outcomes Assessment: A Case Study in Hong Kong

As one of four main streams in quality assurance, outcomes assessment has become markedly significant in higher education sector worldwide. Effective outcomes assessment rests with a robust system in collecting evidence of student achievements of learning outcomes at different levels. This paper attempts to develop a conceptual framework entitled Evidence Collection Initiative for Outcomes Assessment (ECI Framework) in the context of Hong Kong’s higher education sector. The ECI Framework aims to provide an aggregate set of evidence for outcomes assessment.

Using the concept of constructive alignment adopted for the Outcomes-based Teaching and Learning (OBTL) approach, the ECI Framework integrates the course, programme and institutional levels together to constitute an overall evidence collection layout. The course-level represents the mainstay using Course-Embedded Assessment (CEA) as the primary instrument; this is complemented with academic tests administered at university-level for overall monitoring. At the programme level, course assignments are aggregated (Aggregated CEA) together to ascertain the attainment of programmes intended learning outcomes. Apart from direct evidence as mentioned, instruments for collecting indirect evidence are also adopted at each level. Initial implementation provided some useful empirical results supporting the framework’s effectiveness in collecting and aggregating multiple forms of evidence for holistic assessment.