Assessing advising is critical to its improvement and to demonstrating that advising contributes to student success. Through assessment, advisors can ensure that departmental goals are continuously evaluated, that instruments are updated as needed to meet the goals of assessment, that communication is facilitated among stakeholders, and that action is taken as necessary to improve programs that affect student learning. We offer specific guidance for planning, implementing, and improving advising assessment initiatives.
Author notes
Trudy W. Banta is Vice Chancellor for Planning and Institutional Improvement and professor of higher education at Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis. She has consulted with faculty members and administrators in 44 states and Puerto Rico and has by invitation addressed national conferences on outcomes assessment in Canada, China, France, Germany, and Spain. Dr. Banta has written or edited 10 published volumes on assessment, contributed 22 chapters to published works, and written more than 150 articles and reports. She is the founding editor of Assessment Update, a bi-monthly periodical published since 1989. She has been honored for her work by the National Council on Measurement in Education, the American Association for Higher Education, and the American Productivity and Quality Center.
Karen E. Black is the Assistant to the Vice Chancellor for Planning and Institutional Improvement at Indiana Universit – Purdue University Indianapolis and a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education at Indiana University. She serves as managing editor of Assessment Update and has co-authored an article on assessing student development and support services and Assessment in Practice: Putting Principles to Work on College Campuses, published by Jossey-Bass.
Michele J. Hansen is a research analyst in the office of Information Management and Institutional Research at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Her primary research interests are in the areas of program assessment, performance appraisal and feedback systems, change management, and survey design. She received her baccalaureate degree in psychology from Michigan State University and her master 4 and doctoral degrees in social psychology from Loyola University Chicago.
Julia E. Jackson is a doctoral student in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program and is also a J.D. candidate at Indiana University. She received a B.S. in psychology from Kentucky Christian College and a M.S. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Indiana University. Her research interests include issues relating to higher education and law. She is currently a graduate assistant in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Planning and Institutional Improvement at Indiana University Indianapolis.
