Assessing Adult Learning in Diverse Settings: Current Issues and Approaches: New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, Number 75

In this era of increased accountability, assessment of educational achievement has taken on great urgency. This is particularly true within adult continuing education, where assessment results can directly affect a program's existence. This volume presents an overview of some of the general assessment trAnds within the field. The purpose of this volume is to examine assessment approaches analytically from a variety of programatic levels and to look at the implications of these differing approaches. Assessment issues are presented from several perspectives, including the ways in which different assessment techniques accredit adults' prior learning, the concerns that are raised about assessment in specific program areas such as adult basic education and workplace learning, and the importance of self-reflection and self-assessment. The individual chapters go beyond mechanistic issues of measurement to discuss the implications of cultural differences as well as differing ideas about knowledge and knowing and the implications these ideas can have for both the participant and the program. This volume should be of use to anyone concerned with how assessment issues have come to permeate the field of adult continuing education. This is the 75th issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education.