Assessment Leadership and Cultural Change

Increased focus on accountability in higher education has resulted in greater demand for assessment leaders to gather, analyze, and use student learning data. As college and university campuses use student learning data for improvement, assessment professionals are called upon to lead change that challenges underlying beliefs and assumptions about assessment, its purposes, and its uses. Cultural change theories can support assessment professionals by providing strategies for leading change. This article examines how strategies from cultural change theories can be applied by assessment leaders to create cultural change, shifting campus cultures surrounding assessment from that of fear and compliance to celebration.