Employing Faith-Based Contextualized Assessment to Develop Diverse Stakeholder Communities of Assessment

Effective assessment relies on comprehensive and inclusive stakeholder community building. However, developing such communities of judgement is a challenge that institutions regularly face. This argument presents faith-contextualized assessment as a powerful methodology for building robust assessment communities respecting of, and even stimulating, diversity. "Faith" is understood here to indicate an intellectual assent complemented by an act of trust, and is thereby suitable for persons of diverse beliefs, including and especially those committed to faith in the value of education. Though faith-contextualization does not refer here exclusively to religious institutions, research from the Roman Catholic higher education tradition is used to illustrate key points. This presentation has four key objectives: defining faith-contextualized assessment, identifying theoretical links between faith and assessment, applying faith-contextualized assessment as a hermeneutic (i.e., interpretive lens) to understanding stakeholder buy-in to assessment processes, and identifying strategies for applying faith-contextualized assessment to develop communities of assessment rooted in diversity.