Fields, Professions, and Disciplines: Exploring Professional Identity in Assessment

Caroline O. Prendergast, Gianina Baker, Gavin Henning, Susan Kahn, Kate McConnell, Monica Stitt-Bergh, and Linda Townsend   |    Volume 17 Issue 2  |   

Assessment practitioners in higher education follow a variety of paths to their roles. Diverse preparation supports creative problem-solving in a changing educational landscape. However, it can also lead to inconsistency in language, preparation, and background knowledge. Further, the chasms between assessment practitioners’ paths can lead to confused professional identity: who are “assessment professionals”? What do they do? What do they value? How do they understand their roles? This manuscript seeks to elucidate how expert assessment practitioners understand assessment, its role in the modern university, and the future of its practitioner community. Six established voices in higher education assessment provided responses to questions exploring assessment in higher education, the practitioner’s role and identity, and the relationships between practitioners and the institutions in which they work. Their contributions indicate the primacy of interpersonal skills and position the diverse pathways to assessment work as an asset to the practitioner community.

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