The notion of accountability has hovered over academe for years now, an idea fomented in the early 2000s when policymakers sought to determine what was responsible for the declining performance of higher education in the United States.  Yet despite its lingering presence, the meaning of ‘accountability’ remains as hazy as the morning fog.  Ask a dozen educators for a definition and 12 different answers will come billowing forth, a cloud of methodologies and assessments by which they believe accomplishments of an institution should be measured.

For years, Barack Obama, first as senator then as president of the United States, has made accountability a cornerstone of his ambitious plans to reform America’s community colleges.  He’s recognized their growing significance -- right now, somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of all college undergraduates are enrolled in community colleges – and realized the majority of these students are so-called non-traditional students: older, working, married with children.  He’s called for the need to track and assess student progress and compare performances, to ensure the public that institutions are producing the skilled workers needed for our nation to remain productive. 

Yet, explains Bill Pepicello, president of the University of Phoenix, assessment alone does not mean accountability, nor is it achieved simply by releasing the results of an evaluation to the public.  “That evidence must be communicated in a way that allows an accurate comparison of performance,” says Pepicello, “reported not in the language of politics or academe, but in a way meaningful both to constituents and the missions of the institutions themselves.”

Perhaps the most visible of calls for accountability was the 2006 report of the National Commission on the Future of Higher Education, often referred to as the Spellings report but titled “A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education.”   Rather than relying on a solitary voice, the report joined a chorus of studies arguing that improved performance, greater accessibility, and increased diversity in higher education were central to national imperatives to foster economic growth, improve worker skills, and meet the challenges of a knowledge-based 21st century – and that the nation’s colleges and universities should be held accountable for achieving those imperatives.

Those exhortations generated terabytes of data on the performance of students in higher education.  Yet, explains Pepicello, most of those studies neglected to report on large numbers of “nontraditional” students – adults, working full-time, many with families, and who for whatever reason delayed their pursuit of higher education.  “These are not the students that are being measured in national accountability reports,” says Pepicello, “despite the fact that they are the majority of students attending colleges and universities today.”  According to figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, the “traditional” undergraduate – the 18-to-22 year old who has come to college straight from high school, attends school full-time, and is supported by his parents -- has become the exception rather than the rule.  Now, 73 percent of all undergraduates are in some way “non-traditional.”

Yet, despite their declining presence on campus, “traditional students” still are the target of most national assessments of higher education, and their graduation rates are a point of comparison for measuring the success of one school over another.  In fact, data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics through the Graduation Rate Survey, under the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, is limited to full-time, first-time degree- or certificate-seeking students – criteria that include only 7% of University of Phoenix’s students.  “It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison,” says Pepicello.  What’s more, for institutions such as Phoenix, which have an open admissions policy and a commitment to expanding educational opportunities for working adults, such an emphasis on the traditional fails to account for the differing risk factors inhibiting graduation rates for non-traditional students.  

“Inclusion and reaching out to underserved populations are at the heart of the university’s mission,” says Pepicello. As such, using standards devised for determining graduation rates of traditional students creates a false comparison.  But when the university’s students are measured against their peers with the same number of risk factors, a clearer picture of accountability appears. The University of Phoenix’s graduation rates are comparable to other institutions – 38 percent of students of Phoenix students pursuing bachelor’s degrees graduate, versus 43 percent nationally. 27 percent of Phoenix students seeking associate’s degrees received them, the same as the national percentage.

Those findings are revealed in the university’s inaugural “Annual Academic Report,” issued last year. “The report is a transparent look at a variety of ways in which the university measures itself, not only against other institutions but in relation to its own mission,” says Pepicello.  “That transparency is a critical part of accountability, not only to our students, but to regulators, educators, stakeholders, the communities we serve, and the nation.”  

The report details the university's diverse student body – just 54.3 percent white, compared with 61 percent nationally, with more than twice the percentage of African Americans enrolled in 2008 than the 2005 national average (24.6 versus 12 percent).  Student satisfaction ratings are noted in the report as well, as are financial figures and comparisons of scores on the Measurement of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) and the Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (SAILS), which 1,170 Phoenix students took.  Significantly, using such an enrollment status-neutral measure, the university found its students performed better than students at all participating SAILS colleges in searching, evaluating sources, and understanding economic, legal and social issues, while at statistically equivalent levels in developing a research strategy, selecting finding tools, using finding tools features, and retrieving sources. 

To ensure that its students can and continue to achieve the same skill levels as their contemporaries, the university has established institution-wide learning goals, which are applicable to each student in every program at all degree levels and are incorporated into curricula, instruction, and assessment approaches. These learning goals, namely, professional competence and values, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, information utilization, and collaboration, help to guide the development of graduates who possess the qualities former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich noted as requirements for workers in the new economy: the ability “to think, solve problems, and learn how to apply skills in new contexts.”

Moreover, each department within the university has developed its own assessment matrix, outlining specific learning outcomes aligned to the overarching learning goals.  Multiple methods are used to assess each outcome and, to make sure the assessments are both reliable and valid, trained external evaluators are employed, outfitted  with scoring rubrics that support the evaluation.  “Standards are only as good as you apply them,” says Jeremy Moreland, dean of the school of advanced studies, “and, for the dissertation process, the independent reviewers give us a complete and unbiased picture of how well we are applying standards of excellence to the benefit of our students.” 

The data gleaned from such comprehensive and relevant assessments provides not only a statement of accountability but a roadmap for continuous improvement.  “The university is an outcomes-driven institution,” says Pepicello, “and the ingrained culture of assessment provides us with the ability to close the loop wherever a gap in performance may occur.”  Armed with such information, the university is well positioned to effectively allocate the time, resources, and expertise required to enhance the student learning experience and advance its success.

Says Pepicello, “One of the things we wanted to do in the annual report was to tell the academic story of the University of Phoenix, and to talk about how we are addressing the social agenda of the university.”  Yet the pursuit of that story revealed what the school had long suspected: that few, if any, of the benchmarks for learning standards in traditional, conventional education could serve as a basis for comparison with nontraditional providers.  Moreover, the few national standards that do exist fail to measure how well an institution is meeting its particular mission.  “We are accountable to our students to make good on our promise of accessible, quality education for working adults,” says Pepicello, “to create a sustainable environment that supports life-long learning and personal achievement.”  Meeting those mission goals should be part of any assessment, Pepicello notes, and the difference between institutional missions clearly stated in any comparative evaluation. 

Pepicello believes that, rather than trying to enforce a single standard, multiple visions of excellence should be considered and valued. “The differences in institutions of higher education are too complex for any single set of performance measures,” he says.  “‘One size fits all’ does not work.”  A more meaningful evaluation is how well a school is meeting its mission, and how that mission is aligned with national needs for greater intellectual capital.  Ultimately, says Pepicello, accountability encompasses not only the success of a college or university in fulfilling its mission -- and preparing its students for career success -- but how the institution is “providing the learning required to produce a competent workforce capable of contributing to a rapidly changing economy.”