Objectively Measuring Change across Time in Higher Education Assessment

Institutional researchers and assessment professionals are often interested in measuring change across time, especially with data that were obtained via survey research. Unfortunately, measuring change across time poses a number of rather significant problems. For instance, the functioning of the survey items and/or rating scale may change, even in instances where the same instrument was previously administered. This can alter the substantive meaning of the findings. Further, when raw scores are misused as measures, this poses additional problems due to ambiguous frames of reference. This article provides an overview of an alternative approach to objectively measuring change across time, and provides a demonstration of this useful technique.