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Barriers exist on large scale assessment when students are not able to perform at potential for a variety of reasons. Accommodations are mostly available for students who meet criteria for diagnosed disability or criteria for the identification of students who have English as a second language. However, knowing that students have diverse needs, accommodations for a few may not be providing appropriate access for all. Options for designing broader universal design for learning (UDL) on large scale assessment, through strategies that are typically restricted to special accommodations, increase access.

This chapter exemplifies how assessment is performed in innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) at the university education and how educators apply and view formative assessment as an important tool in enhancing students’ learning outcomes.

A case study methodology was applied to characterize the diversity of assessment and evaluation in I&E-education. Covering major scholarly disciplines 10 cases were selected based on mapping of course outlines obtained from university databases across 7 Danish universities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with course responsible educators focusing on alignment between learning goals, assessment forms and criteria, and feedback.

The analysis shows that educators emphasize the importance of formative and learner-centered assessment forms alongside summative, credit-giving assessment. Educators experience that logbooks, learning journals, prototypes, informal feedback session with stakeholders have a crucial potential for enhancing students’ transformative learning.

This study is descriptive and solely based on the educators’ perspectives. To provide more scientifically sound knowledge on the relationship between assessment types and I&E learning outcomes, future research should include students’ perspective and preferably apply both quantitative experimental and qualitative research designs.

The study provides inspiration to educators, researchers, and policy-makers on how to conduct assessment that stimulates students learning in I&E-education.

Considering that the research on how assessment in I&E-education impacts students learning is limited, this study provides important contribution by identifying links between formative assessment types and enhancement of student learning.

A key role of the external examiner is to review student work submitted for assessment plus the feedback and grading undertaken on that work by academic staff. The aim of this is to ensure equitability between the assessments of individual students’ achievement and consistency and comparability across courses throughout the program and with commensurate study levels and programs at other institutions, whilst safeguarding academic standards. The variety of assessment-types that an external examiner may review can be diverse. When the primary focus of the work being assessed is tangible, such as with written examinations or assignments, external examiners are able to view student achievements and assessor actions through a lens comparable to that of the original assessors. However, this process cannot adequately capture assessment-types where the only evidence is proxies to the original achievement. In this chapter, the authors explore the concept of authentic assessments, the benefits of incorporating them within study programs, identify challenges pertaining to their presence to holistic quality assurance (QA) processes in general, and the role of the external examiner in particular. The authors will demonstrate how adopting non-intrusive technologies for recording and verifying authentic assessment practices can strengthen the QA process for the benefit of all stakeholders. For illustration, a case study is employed to demonstrate how these challenges have been tackled regarding performance-based authentic assessments at an institution in Norway. The chapter concludes with a summary plus a call to arms for further research into how quality and consistency can be assured when authentic assessments are employed.

L. Dee Fink proposes that different and more significant kinds of learning should be created in higher education to transition student outcomes from simply “learning” to “significant learning,” and these new types of learning should be situated within significant learning experiences (Fink, 2003). Fink also identified a taxonomy of significant learning that included six components: integration, foundational knowledge, application, human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn. Using Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning as a framework, the authors will share the development of a course on navigating the US Healthcare System that resulted in significant learning outcomes for students completing the first semester of a four-year Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum. Each learning experience will link to a component of the taxonomy and will serve as the mechanism for the authors to share the development and implementation associated with each aspect of the semester-long course. The assessment structure of the course is described in detail. The authors present one or more learning experiences to illustrate each component of Fink’s Taxonomy. Finally, lessons learned from the development and implementation of the course are presented to guide programs considering implementation of a similar significant learning experience.

Student populations in higher education in the United States have become increasingly diverse as a result of demographic changes. As a result, educators need an understanding of the background and characteristics of these demographic subgroups in order to improve the quality of their education. Students’ approaches to learning affect their quality of learning and are influenced by their perceptions of the learning environment and assessment. The present study extends prior research by examining the approaches to learning, assessment preferences, and the relationship between approaches to learning and assessment preferences of intermediate accounting students enrolled in a public university in the United States with a diverse student population. Students with higher deep approaches to learning had higher preferences for assessment involving higher-order thinking tasks, integrated assessment, and nonconventional assessment. Students with higher surface approaches to learning had lower preferences for assessment involving higher-order thinking tasks. The differences in these relationships for subgroups of students defined by citizenship, age, gender, and race are presented. The implications of the results for teaching and learning in accounting education are discussed.

There is a concerning disparity between students with disabilities and their peers without disabilities in their long-term, postsecondary outcomes. The former group tends to have a variety of poorer outcomes in important domains of life, such as employment, postsecondary education, independent living, and community participation. Policymakers, scholars, and the general public alike have called attention to this issue, resulting in both legal mandates and research on evidence-based practices in the area of transition services. While the law requires individualized, results-oriented transition services based upon age-appropriate transition assessment and a number of evidence-based transition practices and predictors have been identified, studies of individualized education programs and practices have revealed a significant underuse of best practices in transition assessment and services. In this chapter, we discuss the importance of comprehensive transition assessment as a foundation for setting postsecondary goals and designing services that best fit individual student strengths and needs and best prepare students to be successful in their adult lives. Further, we provide an overview of current recommendations for best practices in planning, conducting, and interpreting transition assessments, and offer suggestions for areas where further research is needed.

Assessment techniques for students with visual impairments (that is, those who are blind or have low vision) are designed to meet their unique learning needs. Considerations for assessment both within the general curriculum and expanded core curriculum (ECC) for students with visual impairments are presented. The roles of educational team members are discussed, especially as related to special education service providers trained to teach students with visual impairments. The heterogeneous nature of the population of students with visual impairments and the importance of assessment as a collaborative process are additional discussion points presented within this chapter for specific consideration.

Assessing learners with extensive support needs has traditionally been rooted in deficit perspectives, in which student incapacities are highlighted. We start this chapter with an overview of this historical view and identify its shortcomings. Next, we identify alternate assessment and progress monitoring as key efforts for shifting the lens from deficit-oriented assessment toward more grade-aligned, inclusive-, and strengths-based strategies. We also identify strategies for comprehensive assessment that can continue this shift in approach. Finally, we conclude with ideas for future directions in assessing learners with extensive support needs.

In this chapter, I expand on ideas about assessment originally put forward by Federico Waitoller and I in recent articles about a curriculum design that cross-pollinates elements of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The purpose of our original work was to address the intersection of racism and ableism in education and to position disability as an identity worth sustaining at the intersection of other forms of difference such as race and national origin. I discuss problematic legacies with the ways in which assessments have functioned to stratify and sort people along racial and ability hierarchies, and place educators in powerful positions of appraisal with consequences for students' belonging and learning in schools. Finally, I articulate additional elements and features of assessment that is designed to counter these legacies while positioning Black, Indigenous, and students of color (BISOC) with disabilities as capable and knowledgeable, along with examples drawn from the literature on CSP, UDL, and research methods for data collection with students with disabilities and diverse racial memberships and communicative repertoires.