Why is the measurement of learning outcomes so important?
Over the past three decades or more, we’ve learned a lot from other areas of human endeavor about assessing outcomes and performance measurement. As the old adage goes, to improve a phenomenon, we need to first measure it, in all its inherent richness and complexity. Physical scientists have practiced that for a long time, but it is still evolving in the social sciences. The more elaborate the measurement, the greater the ability to make improvements, try out new wrinkles and assess how the changes work.
