Press Releases
PLA Research & Publications
Many higher education institutions ensure the quality of their Prior Learning Assessment programs by adhering to quality standards such as CAEL’s
Ten Standards of Assessing Learning. We have published many other whitepapers and books on the subject of PLA.
Availability, Use and Value of Prior Learning Assessment within Community Colleges
by Cathy Brigham, PhD and Rebecca Klein-Collin, 2010This report presents the findings of an exploratory study of how prior learning assessment (PLA) is used and viewed within community colleges. The results are from a 2010 survey of select community college administrators.
Degree Completion Beyond Institutional Borders: Responding to the New Reality of Mobile and Nontraditional Learnersby Rebecca Klein-Collins, Amy Sherman, and Louis Soares, 2010This paper, published in partnership with the Center for American Progress, discusses the ways in which higher education have made efforts to recognize learning and remove other institutional barriers to credit and learning portability. Solutions discussed include articulation and transfer agreements, prior learning assessment, degree completion institutions, and competency-based models.
Download the report here.
Fueling the Race to Postsecondary Success
by Rebecca Klein-Collins, 2010
With support from Lumina Foundation for Education, CAEL collected data on 62,475 students at 48 higher education institutions that offer prior learning assessment (PLA). The new report presents our findings on the comparison of PLA students with non-PLA students in terms of earned degrees, persistence, and time to degree. Such a large-scale look at PLA credit earning and academic outcomes has never before been done.
Prior Learning Portfolios: A Representative Collection
by Denise M. Hart and Jerry H. Hickerson, 2009
This resource is a valuable reference tool for PLA assessors, administrators, and PLA instructors and can help train both faculty and students to understand portfolio assessment. Designed to provide you with institutional policies and procedures regarding prior learning portfolios, this text and accompanying CD-ROM contain thirteen sample portfolios from eleven different institutions, handbooks, guidelines, flow charts, and information about the location of portfolio assessment in the context of a degree.
Click here to order online.