"Once touted as the single best way to measure students from diverse backgrounds, schools, and experiences, standardized college admissions tests are now criticized for being hopelessly biased in favor of traditionally privileged groups. Out of this has emerged the test-optional movement that seeks to allow students to apply to schools without sitting through the rigors of the SAT. This book takes a step back and applies rigorous empirical measurements to these rival claims. Drawing upon the expertise of higher education researchers, admissions officers, enrollment managers, and policy professionals, this edited volume is among the first to investigate the research and policy implications of test-optional practices. It was conceived in response to the editors' frustration with the fragmented and incomplete state of the literature around the contemporary debate on college admissions testing. Many students, teachers, parents, policymakers--frankly, nearly anyone immediately outside the testing industry and college admissions--have little understanding of how admissions tests are used. This lack of transparency has often fueled beliefs that college assessments are biased, misused, or overused. Decades of research on various aspects of testing, such as the predictive validity of assessments, makes a compelling case for their value. But all-too-frequently researchers and admissions officers talk past one another instead of engaging substantively. This collection intends to remedy the situation by bringing these disparate voices together. This book is designed for provosts, enrollment managers, and college admissions officers seeking to strike the proper balance between uniformity and fairness"--

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are indispensable for measuring business, but if they don't serve a larger mission, it's easy to lose sight of why you're measuring in the first place. Tracking the dynamic relationship between mission and measurement, this book is logical, approachable, and filled with relatable anecdotes. Greg Brisendine has provided strategic and measurement consulting to Fortune 100 companies and to small startups. In all cases, he starts by finding out what's important to those leaders. From there, he maps a path to their KPIs. That mission-driven approach is what he brings to this book. Measuring Success is an indispensable tool for anyone with the ambition to affect change - from new managers to seasoned leaders.

In the spring of 2010, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clay Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-HBS careers. The students wanted to know how to apply his wisdom to their personal lives. He shared with them a set of guidelines that have helped him find meaning in his own life, which led to this now-classic article. Although Christensen’s thinking is rooted in his deep religious faith, these are strategies anyone can use. Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.

It has never been more important to show examples of sales skills at work. The process to evaluate these skills is sometimes perceived as straightforward and routine, simply a matter of tracking the sales gains after the program has been conducted. But credibly Measuring the Success of Sales Training programs is a bit more involved than that. Experts in the practice of ROI measurement, Jack and Patricia Phillips have collected a new book of ROI case studies, with a focus on sales training programs. The case studies presented in this book demonstrate how to use of the ROI Methodology to properly measure the results of sales programs. These studies come from all over the world, in many different disciplines and concentrations, from financial services to the public sector. The use of the ROI Methodology addresses issues that are sometimes omitted from other casebooks. First, since many other factors influence sales, there must always be a step to isolate the effects of the sales training program on the sales (each study features this step). Second, when converting to monetary value, only the profit margins of increased sales must be used, not the sales themselves—a mistake made by many. Third, the stream of monetary benefits for the increased profits must be conservative, usually representing only one year. Sponsors need a credible, conservative approach to measuring ROI—one that meets these challenges. All of the case studies in this book will address these issues, providing examples and benchmarks for others to use to evaluate these important types of programs.

Employee engagement, impact, ROI—if you can’t connect the three, your program’s in trouble. The number of employees who sleepwalk through the day or undermine the work of their engaged counterparts is on the rise. More and more companies are turning to engagement programs to recoup lost revenue and productivity. But these pricey endeavors can lose critical funding when they are designed without business impact in mind. In Measuring the Success of Employee Engagement, renowned experts Jack Phillips and Patti Phillips and knowledge organization expert Rebecca Ray help you make the business case for an employee engagement initiative. More important, you’ll discover what it takes to build a program with the end in mind. By following real case studies that show the Phillips’s ROI Methodology in action, you’ll learn how to avoid narrowly focusing your efforts on behavioral outcomes alone. Measuring the Success of Employee Engagement is an essential resource for all who support employee engagement efforts, from the chief learning officer to individual members of employee engagement teams. Ensure that your employees drive innovation and increase sales with an engagement program that earns its keep.

Co-published in association with Big Picture Learning.Measuring Noncognitive Variables: Improving Admissions, Success, and Retention for Underrepresented Students is written for admissions professionals, counselors, faculty and advisers who admit, teach, or work with students during the admissions process and post-enrollment period. It brings together theory, research and practice related to noncognitive variables in a practical way by using assessment methods provided at no cost. Noncognitive variables have been shown to correlate with the academic success of students of all races, cultures, and backgrounds. Noncognitive variables include personal and social dimensions, adjustment, motivation, and student perceptions, rather than the traditional verbal and quantitative areas (often called cognitive) typically measured by standardized tests.Key Features include:* Models that raise concepts related to innovation, diversity and racism in proactive ways* Examples of admission and post-enrollment applications that show how schools and programs can use noncognitive variables in a variety of ways * Additional examples from foundations, professional associations, and K-12 programs* An overview of the limitations of traditional assessment methods such as admission tests, grades, and courses takenEducation professionals involved in the admissions process will find this guide effectively informs their practice. This guide is also appropriate as a textbook in a range of courses offered in Higher Education and Student Affairs Masters and PhD programs.

"This book explores new approaches which may better effectively identify, explain, and improve IS assessment in organizations"--Provided by publisher.