An Examination of Prior Learning Assessment Participation and Guidance at Four-Year Universities

Authors

Abstract

Amid the push to increase educational attainment nationally is the growing embrace of strategies that create greater efficiency to graduate both traditional and nontraditional learners. One such advancement is the assessment of prior learning that happens outside the confines of the college walls. This study examined data from a Hanover Research report prepared for Indiana State University (ISU) about the participation of 20 Midwestern public nonprofit institutions in prior learning assessment (PLA) for college credit. The authors used the report to explore application of the four most common delivery methods for PLA including portfolio assessment, credit by exam, military education credit, and corporate and professional credentialing. ISU synthesized the best practices for PLA and made tangible adjustments to processes and procedures that will allow the university to be responsive to the aims of the Indiana Commission for Higher Education in a manner that has rigor and academic integrity. Based upon the findings, a task force has been successful in moving PLA practice forward to address institutional issues including the need for new students, retention of existing students, and greater degree completion of adult learners at ISU.

Keywords: prior learning assessment, adult learners, nontraditional students, persistence, degree completion programs

Author Biography

  • Matt J Bergman, University of Louisville
    Matt Bergman, PhD, Assistant Professor in the College of Education and Human Development. Dr. Bergman’s research is focused on adult learner persistence, prior learning assessment, leadership, and degree completion programs. His work has appeared in refereed journals such as the Journal of Continuing Higher Education, Adult Learning, Human Resource Development Review, International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, and his work highlighted in international media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and TIME. In 2015, Bergman and his colleagues won the E. F. Holton III Outstanding Article of the Year. His program was the recipient of the 2016 ACHE South’s Distinguished Program Award and the 2013 AAACE Malcolm Knowles Award for Adult Education Program of the Year. The program was also acknowledged as a 2014 National Program of Distinction in the American Public and Land Grant Universities’ MVP Awards for Campus Based Strategies for Student Success and the 2013 Innovation for Educational Attainment from the Gheens Foundation and 55,000 Degrees based upon local implementation of his research. Dr. Bergman was awarded the 2018 ACHE South Outstanding Faculty Award, The Metroversity Outstanding Faculty for Adult Learners in 2015, and has been a Faculty Favorite at UofL from 2012-2017. He is a Fellow for Complete College America that serves as a teacher, administrator, and ambassador of adult degree attainment both locally, and nationally.
Matt Bergman and Steve McCaskey photo

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Published

2019-11-07

Issue

No. 7 (2019): PLA Outreach, Participation and Guidance

Section

Inquiry (Peer-Reviewed)

License

Authors retain copyright of their work, and readers are free to print, share and distribute materials from PLA Inside-Out as long as they respect the rights of the author.  Materials included in PLA Inside-Out cannot be published without an author’s permission.

How to Cite

An Examination of Prior Learning Assessment Participation and Guidance at Four-Year Universities. (2019). PLA Inside Out: An International Journal on Theory, Research and Practice in Prior Learning Assessment, 7(7). https://plaio.org/index.php/home/article/view/156