Cultivating Graduate‐Level Assessment Skills Through an <i>A+ Inquiry</i> Thesis Alternative

M aster's programs often require students to complete a thesis or similarly comprehensive project as a means of demonstrating their ability to create new knowledge or understanding through research or another style of rigorous inquiry (Bui 2014; Graduate School 2020;Ylijoki 2001).Bui (2014) describes a Master's thesis as an empirically based study that requires students to "conduct original research, review the existing literature, collect data, analyze the results, and discuss conclusions and draw implications" (p. 6).Thesis writing can be a complex and ambiguous process that may lead to prolonged time to completion or drop-out (Bui 2014; Ylijoki 2001).Consequently, many Master's programs have offered alternatives to thesis writing.For example, Minot State University (2023) provides Master of Education (M.Ed.) students with the option of completing a Capstone Project based on the A+ Inquiry framework as an alternative to writing a thesis.The A+ Inquiry framework synthesizes stages of disciplined inquiry that are common among assessment, evaluation, and research initiatives (Anderson, Brockel, and Kana 2014).Although they serve unique purposes, whether someone is conducting assessment, evaluation, or research, they identify a need to know more about something, formulate questions to guide a study that is intended to help generate additional knowledge, collect and analyze data to answer the questions, share the results with audiences as appropriate, and inform decisions based on the findings (Booth, Colomb, and Williams 2008;Borden 2002;Rossi, Lipsey, and Freeman 2004).Examples of higher education assessment frameworks reflecting these stages include Pike's (2002) elements of good assessment (pp.