Giving an Account: Meeting Accountability and Improvement Demands in a Responsible Manner

Building from research conducted by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) in the United States, this discussion centers around the evidence-based narratives and claims put forward by institutions around responsible quality management. Using discourse analysis on accreditation and programmatic improvement reports from over 150 institutions throughout the United States, along with Toulmin’s (2003) model of argumentation, the authors present three mental models that inform institutional evidence-based storytelling: that of measurement, compliance, or teaching and learning.