Portfolios of Evidence Demonstrate Learning Impact

• While schools have developed sophisticated ways to assess student learning, they find it more challenging to show that learning has a lasting impact.
• Schools can demonstrate the educational value of their programs by assembling portfolios of learning indicators, including direct evidence of competency development, employer validation, graduate outcomes, and institutional learning.
• It’s imperative that schools revise incentives and evaluation systems to reward faculty for activities that improve educational quality and generate evidence of learning.

 
Business schools have become increasingly sophisticated in demonstrating the impact of research. Over time, the conversation has shifted from counting publications and citations to documenting how scholarship creates value by influencing organizations, guiding policy, shaping practice, and benefiting society.

Business education now faces a similar challenge: demonstrating the impact of learning. But how can schools show that the competencies being taught in the classroom can be translated into the workplace as graduates lead organizations, manage employees, and make critical decisions?

The question is particularly urgent because, across the board, today’s stakeholders demand evidence that a business education has value. Employers look for new hires who can solve real-world problems and display critical thinking skills. Learners seek evidence of career acceleration. Accreditors and society expect business schools to produce graduates who contribute effectively to organizations and communities.

Most schools try to answer the question by investing significantly in assurance of learning (AoL) processes. Faculty define learning goals, collect assessment data, analyze results, and implement improvements. Additionally, schools turn to traditional indicators of educational success: grades, course evaluations, graduation rates, and job placement statistics.

While these metrics are useful, each provides only part of the picture. Grades record course performance. Placement rates reflect one moment in time. Student evaluations capture perceptions. Even strong assessment systems mainly show whether students have achieved learning outcomes within a program, not whether those outcomes create value after graduation.

Therefore, another quiet question persists: Are we measuring learning, or are we measuring the assessment of learning? That is, are we measuring how well students meet learning outcomes, or are we measuring the real-world outcomes of what they learn?

We believe it’s possible for schools to credibly demonstrate learning impact. We have discovered that the best way to do this is through portfolios of evidence that capture learning from multiple perspectives, at different points in time, and for multiple stakeholders.

Three Crucial Definitions

It’s productive to begin the conversation about impact by distinguishing among teaching effectiveness, learning outcomes, and learning impact.

Teaching effectiveness concerns how well faculty design, deliver, assess, and improve learning experiences. Evidence of effectiveness comes from peer reviews, classroom observations, teaching portfolios, faculty reflection, and student feedback.

Are we measuring how well students meet learning outcomes, or are we measuring the real-world outcomes of what they learn?

Learning outcomes focus on whether students acquire the competencies a school intends to develop. Evidence includes exams, projects, simulations, case analyses, capstone experiences, certification performances, and competency-based rubrics.

Learning impact measures whether those competencies create lasting value beyond the classroom. It focuses on how graduates apply knowledge and skills in professional, organizational, and societal contexts.

These categories are related, but they are not interchangeable. Effective teaching can improve learning outcomes. Strong outcomes can contribute to learning impact. But evidence of teaching effectiveness is not evidence of learning impact. Completion of a course or program does not ensure that learning continues to influence graduates after they leave the institution. In fact, in today’s era of generative artificial intelligence, completed assignments and high grades no longer prove that students have mastered specific skills. We need other measures.

Portfolios of Evidence

Just as research impact is demonstrated through multiple metrics, learning impact requires a portfolio of indicators that together provide a credible picture of educational value. Four categories are particularly valuable:

Direct evidence of competency development. As mentioned above, such evidence can come from capstone projects, simulations, business competitions, certifications, presentations, case analyses, and other authentic assessments. The strongest measures evaluate performance against clearly defined competency standards.

For example, one AACSB-accredited institution in Houston required MBA students in a strategy capstone course to develop and run a simulated startup company before making a “Shark Tank”-style presentation to peers, faculty, and industry representatives. Another example comes from Central Washington University, where one of the authors previously served as dean. There, the MBA program was redesigned in collaboration with industry partners to include corporate fellows, executive skill development, and a capstone experience. Both the capstone course and the MBA program required students to produce evidence that they could apply knowledge under conditions close to professional practice.

Employer validation. The input of internship supervisors, hiring managers, advisory boards, and industry partners can help schools measure whether graduates possess workplace-relevant competencies. This feedback reveals strengths and gaps that internal measures may miss.

In addition, schools can solicit employer feedback to ensure their programs have practical relevance. Schools can use executive focus groups to identify microcredentials and certificates in high-demand fields, or they might recruit industry and community leaders to serve on advisory boards.

Involving external stakeholders can offer other benefits. One school in Washington State has received a 350,000 USD grant from a foundation to support regional talent development and strengthen the career readiness of learners. A Texas A&M regional institution has seen significant enrollment growth since making industry-informed curricular changes. While these examples do not prove learning impact, they suggest that when programs are aligned with workforce needs and stakeholder expectations, students will graduate with the competences that employers seek.

Learning impact requires a portfolio of indicators that together provide a credible picture of educational value.

Graduate outcomes. Schools can track the accomplishments of their alumni, including how their careers have progressed, what leadership responsibilities they have assumed, what kinds of entrepreneurial activity they have pursued, and which additional certifications they have earned. Alumni also can report which competencies have proved valuable, which skills they use regularly, and how their educations have shaped their professional progress.

We know of a school in Washington state that tracks postgraduation competency and growth through its Office of Learner Access and Success, which also supports internships and micro-internships. In addition, the school was planning to launch a career readiness program in which students would earn badges for developmental milestones. While placement data can show whether graduates obtained jobs, evidence of career progression shows that graduates continue to use and build on what they learned.

Institutional learning. A portfolio should also show that the institution learns from its own evidence. If assessment data reveal weaknesses in communication, quantitative reasoning, ethical judgment, or student confidence, schools should be able to demonstrate how they responded and how their interventions improved outcomes.

One example comes from an urban institution in Houston where assessment findings led the school to add peer mentoring, supplemental instruction, success coaching, and an extended first-year orientation. Retention and graduation rates increased by 3 percent by year two, and the institution later scaled the number of mentors in its program from 40 to 100. The school used the intervention to inform action, review results, and expand successful practices.

The same institution created an Office of Impact Learning to coordinate service learning, study abroad programs, internships, and undergraduate research. By gathering systematic evidence of these various activities, the school made learning impact visible, trackable, and improvable.

Incentives and Evaluations

Schools will be able to gather strong evidence of impact only if they implement institutional practices that support meaningful learning and continuous improvement. In particular, they need to rethink their faculty incentives and evaluation systems.

At many institutions, faculty evaluation systems still place significant weight on student satisfaction surveys. But satisfaction is not the same as learning. When career advancement depends primarily on satisfaction scores, faculty face structural pressure to prioritize favorable student evaluations over academic rigor. Consequently, learning can suffer.

Therefore, administrators should revise the faculty incentive system to recognize and reward activities that improve educational quality and generate evidence of learning. These activities might include redesigning the curriculum around assessment findings, developing authentic assessments tied to program competencies, providing mentorship that demonstrably improves student outcomes, engaging with employers in ways that inform pedagogical choices, and participating in peer review of teaching. These are not peripheral service activities. They are the core professional behaviors that strengthen learning.

For example, a dean at one of the regional institutions in the Texas A&M system introduced and supported a research-and-teaching model by providing course releases and research stipends. This dean used faculty development investments, including workshops on pedagogy and artificial intelligence, to strengthen teaching and assessment practices. These practices ultimately yielded evidence of impact.

Administrators should revise the faculty incentive system to recognize and reward activities that improve educational quality and generate evidence of learning.

Other schools are adopting the approach laid out in the TEval Initiative, a multi-institutional project involving the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Kansas, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In the TEval approach, teaching effectiveness is evaluated based on three sources.

Structured peer review is conducted by trained faculty colleagues who use validated protocols to observe specific dimensions of teaching practice and produce evaluations anchored to defined criteria. Training matters: Reviewers learn to recognize and mitigate the same biases that distort student evaluations, and calibration exercises help build inter-rater reliability. When peer review identifies a specific gap—say, that assessment tasks are not well aligned to stated learning objectives—that finding becomes the basis for a targeted developmental conversation rather than a punitive evaluation.

Teaching portfolios provide documented evidence of instructional practice over time. They typically include syllabi, assessment instruments with explanatory rationales, samples of student work at multiple performance levels, evidence of student learning outcomes, and records of instructional innovations. Portfolios simultaneously provide summative evidence for tenure and promotion decisions, formative evidence for faculty development, and direct evidence of student learning for accreditation.

Faculty self-reflection is the integrating mechanism. Faculty analyze their assessment data, identify patterns in student performance, describe what pedagogical changes they made in response, and document what happened when they did. For example, an instructor who examines capstone data might discover that students struggle with quantitative reasoning in ambiguous contexts. In response, the instructor might redesign a core module to introduce scaffolded practice problems, then document the resulting improvement.

While TEval strengthens teaching effectiveness, it is not, by itself, evidence of learning impact. Thus, administrators who implement it should frame it as a way to achieve a broader view of teaching than course evaluations alone can provide. But when faculty connect assessment findings to instructional change, they will make learning more likely—and more measurable.

Leadership Matters

A portfolio of evidence does not assemble itself. It requires intentional leadership, especially from deans, to shape resources, structures, partnerships, and culture. Deans can create dedicated positions and offices for generating and tracking impact evidence. They can invest in data systems, success coaches, scholarships, faculty development, employer partnerships, and assessment capacity. They can build cultures in which data are used for decision-making, not merely for reporting.

Deans also are instrumental in cultivating relationships with advisory boards, focus groups, corporate fellows, internship partners, and community organizations. Some of these external stakeholders will be the employers who can provide validation of student learning. When deans build these partnerships thoughtfully, evidence generation becomes part of the institution’s operating system rather than an episodic accreditation exercise.

AACSB has provided a clear framework for what business schools should demonstrate through learning impact. The opportunity now is for schools to redesign their systems to produce credible evidence of that impact. Institutions that build portfolios of learning impact and align faculty incentives with authentic learning will do more than strengthen accreditation. They will show that business education creates lasting value for graduates, employers, and society.

The challenge ahead is not simply better assessment. It is demonstrating that business education makes a lasting difference.

If research must show impact, so must teaching.