<i>JAIE</i> Guest Editor Notes: Equity and Assessment

We are truly honored to serve as guest editors for this special issue of the Journal of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness focused on equity and assessment. This special issue is timely in part because of the movement of assessment practice and scholarship toward a deeper understanding and application of equitable assessment processes and practices. Yet it is also timely given the larger national context in which the work of assessment in higher education rests. State lawmakers are passing legislation to remove or ban the use of state funds to support the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion as well as limiting the disaggregation of data in some states (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2024). Further, the use of and access to generative artificial intelligence, or AI, such as ChatGPT raises questions regarding equitable access to technology, cultural bias in large language models, and ethical academic integrity policies that do not further harm historically underserved students. There are many opportunities today for the work of advancing equity in higher education assessment to falter, but there are also many who are engaged in the work of bringing more equity into higher education through intentional and thoughtful approaches to assessment.The scholarly dialogue on equity and assessment presents various points of entry, ranging from culturally responsive assessment to socially just assessment as well as trauma-informed and healing-centered assessment (Baker & Henning, 2022). There are many doing this work and many ways in which it may be done. This special issue brings together scholars and practitioners in both academic and student affairs who each offer different points of entry, research, and framing to engage in equity and assessment.The special issue opens with an article by Ciji Heiser, who provides an overview of a national survey of assessment practices regarding the types of activities and approaches practitioners are implementing for equity-related assessment efforts. The article examines what and how much equitable assessment practitioners are doing to present a current landscape of the field of assessment and equity. Based on responses from nearly 600 assessment professionals, she advocates for greater involvement of students in the assessment process along with collaboration with partners across campus to make sense of data and leverage data for continuous improvement. While assessment professionals report that they regularly reflect on and consider systemic bias along with their own positionality, Heiser argues that collaboration is the bridge that allows assessment professionals to move from the internal process of reflection and consideration to external action and advocacy.Kawehi Goto’s article builds upon the importance of student involvement and voice in equitable assessment and evaluation by situating Native Hawaiian voices in a multiple case study of 11 Hawaiian doctoral students’ experiences with evaluation and assessment. The article reconceptualizes evaluation and assessment narratives of Hawaiian people from one of negative outcomes in relation to dominant populations and master narrative paradigms, to that of a Hawaiian story or mo’olelo. Utilizing a KanakaCrit lens, Goto tells a story of Hawaiian student trauma in negative stereotypes, discrimination, and prejudice, along with themes of safety, stability, and health disparities as barriers to student well-being. Goto advocates for integrating rituals and practices of a place, such as oli (Hawaiian chant) or mele (Hawaiian poetry) in the Hawaiʻi context, into the assessment and evaluation process to create “safe” spaces rooted in relationship building. The article concludes that culturally responsive evaluation and assessment is not enough if responsiveness is presented as understanding and appreciation. Instead, responsible assessment should provide stability and include action that creates safer environments for Indigenous voices to be heard.Karen Singer-Freeman, Stacey Zimmerman, Catherine Payne, Giana Malak, Thomas Redd, and Michelle Solér continue the inclusion of student voices in assessment practices through a focus on strengths-based evaluation. Their article presents a model for how to develop an evaluation plan focused upon student strengths. Using the example of a strengths-based intervention designed to improve Black male performance in a required Calculus I math course in part of a STEM pathway, Singer-Freeman and colleagues outlined a comprehensive evaluation plan that aligned with the strengths approach while providing formative information to inform implementation of the intervention. The intervention included placement support, culturally responsive advising, mentoring, and corequisite courses that were evaluated through focus groups, open-ended survey questions, Likert-type scale items, and examination of implementation fidelity. The strengths-based approach to evaluation development meant that Black males were not compared to other groups and instead focused on the factors that enable success from the strengths Black males bring with them. In short, the evaluation created space for Black males to share their experience and identify practices that were effective for them. The article presents a replicable model of how one might go about such an evaluation to increase equity in evaluation of university initiatives.Myra George, Christine Robinson, Mitchel Cottenoir, and Martha Bottia’s article continues the focus of examining university initiatives but shifts to look at grades in STEM courses through expanded disaggregation and interrogation of data. The article seeks to address equity grading gaps through a higher education assessment ecosystem model that examines various factors that influence grades including students, faculty members and other graders, assessment tools and resources, and grading policies and practices. Utilizing grade and demographic data, George and colleagues examine the effect curving on an exam may have on grade distributions as well as examine test item analysis of final exams and feedback review in college algebra and organic chemistry courses. The three approaches serve as examples for ways to engage in conversations with faculty on pedagogical choices as well as the short- and long-term consequences for students when multilevel models are employed. The authors encourage assessment professionals to consider that their work is not done simply because findings and results are shared with faculty about equity grade gaps. Instead, the work must support faculty to take action on the results for improvement of the student learning experience.The article by Divya Bheda, Lezlee Matthews, Michael Bentley, and Annabelle Goodwin presents an equity framework to inform what actions might be taken on results to improve student learning. Bheda and colleagues explore why it is that assessment and continuous improvement efforts seem unable or ineffective when it comes to advancing an equity agenda. Three case studies apply an equity framework to aid assessment professionals in aligning intentions, action, and impact by considering higher education spaces as an equity arena that houses equity actors attempting to engage in equity actions rooted in four equity anchors. The cases highlight the various ways in which to engage in equitable assessment efforts along with reflections on length of time to see movement, efforts, supports, and mediating factors that impact successful engagement in equity and assessment work. The authors invite practitioners to utilize the equity framework to help transform and see differently equity work in assessment to find ways to move the needle within an institution.While the prior articles present different ways in which to engage in equity and assessment work, rarely are such efforts captured in assessment reporting processes and practices. Peggy Maki makes the case to humanize assessment reporting, given that reductionist approaches to assessment reporting do not afford space to share the work outlined in the articles prior. Maki argues that externally mandated compliance-based reporting processes prioritize a reductionist reporting approach that dismisses the realities and dynamic circumstances of faculty and staff who engage with students in the learning process. Instead, Maki presents an inquiry approach that draws evidence from the firsthand knowledge and experience of full- and part-time faculty and other professionals who help students navigate the challenges they face. Further, inquiry values student voice for the insights they can offer into educational practices and approaches at both the course and program levels.To conclude the special issue, Marilee Bresciani Ludvik claims that higher education should strive to measure what is valued through outcomes-based assessment incorporating social mobility indicators. Bresciani Ludvik advocates for the alignment of outcomes-based assessment practices with key performance indicators that monitor institutional comparable contributions to social mobility. The article outlines a process that other institutions may use to design institutional indicators for undergraduate and graduate education that highlight social mobility. Bresciani Ludvik argues that institutions must measure not only access and completion but also the improvement of economic and social status intergenerationally, as a focus on social mobility elevates the public good status of higher education in relation to equitable outcomes. Utilizing Astin’s Inputs-Environment-Outcomes framework (1993), the article provides a path forward in alignment with updates to the Carnegie Classification to ensure that institutions are measuring what is valued for equitable learning opportunities.It is our hope that this special issue, ranging from frameworks and examples of practice to reporting processes and institutional indicators, sparks ideas for application in local contexts as well as further dialogue and sharing of research and examples for how assessment can be approached and implemented in more equitable ways.