CAE Chief Academic Officer Doris Zahner Co-Authors Chapter in New Book on Assessment

The edited volume, published by APA Books, focuses on assessment at the individual, institutional and international levels

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Doris Zahner, chief academic officer at the Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CAE), a leading provider of performance-based, authentic assessments measuring essential college and career readiness skills, has published a chapter in a newly released edited volume on assessment, by APA Books, Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Psychology: Strategies for Measuring and Improving Student Performance. APA Books is the publishing arm of the American Psychological Association (APA).

The book, co-edited by Susan Nolan, Christopher Hakala, and R. Eric Landrum, explores assessments that instructors and administrators can use to design student-centered undergraduate psychology courses and curricula. The contributors also address the realities of assessment, offering ideas on how to maximize their utility in the face of limitations. Ultimately, the book can support programs as they prepare students to be successful global citizens.

Zahner’s chapter focuses on the case for the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), an assessment of college and career readiness skills in higher education in an international context. Co-authors include Dirk Van Damme, head of the Centre for Education Research and Innovation, Organisation at the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as additional CAE researchers.

“It is important for CAE to be part of the dialogue about improving students’ learning outcomes,” said Zahner. “We know that what we measure on CLA+ – critical thinking, problem-solving and written communication – are the real-world skills essential for success in college and career, especially in the global context.”

“The OECD is strongly committed to advancing the agenda of assessing learning outcomes in higher education,” said Van Damme. “We definitely see an increase globally in understanding and improving students’ proficiency in the kind of competences that matter for the 21^st century workplace and society.”

This is the third publication and fourth chapter Zahner has contributed in the higher education field. An assessment expert who oversees CAE’s research and measurement science, she is also the coauthor of chapters in Assessment of learning outcomes in higher education: Cross-national comparisons and perspectives (New York, NY: Springer) and the Handbook of research on computational tools for real-world skill development (Hershey, PA: IGI Global).

“This book is a must-have for every undergraduate psychology faculty member and administrator worldwide,” said former APA President Nadine Kaslow. Helen Bakker of Utrecht University in the Netherlands said the book “may inspire and facilitate an academic community in which student learning is optimized, and assessment may even be a fun part of it!”

Zahner holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and a master’s degree in applied statistics from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is an adjunct associate professor of public service of NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service teaching qualitative analysis, and an adjunct associate professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches courses in statistics to students in the social sciences.

Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Psychology is available directly from APA Books, as well as from many major online book sellers.

About CAE
CAE is a leader in developing performance-based assessments that authentically measure students' strengths and opportunities for improvement in the essential college and career readiness skills most in demand by higher education institutions and employers - critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication. Since 2002, more than 800,000 students at over 1,300 K-12 and higher education institutions globally have completed CAE’s flagship assessments: CLA+ and CWRA+. A mission-driven, non-profit organization, CAE also partners with its clients to design a range of customized best-practice performance-task model assessment solutions that measure the constructs considered most important to students and educators, including ministries of education, major consortia, foundations, and leading university and secondary education institutions. To learn more, please visit www.cae.org.

CONTACT: Media Contact Lara Cohn RoseComm for CAE 646-596-6377 lcohn@rosecomm.com