The PLA Boost

Results from a 72-Institution Targeted Study of  Prior Learning Assessment  and Adult Student Outcomes

Prior learning assessment has a past, present, and future: 2010, 2020, 2030. People have always acquired learning from multiple sources - school, work, military, travel, self-study, and community and volunteer service. And long before learning was packaged into credentials awarded primarily by schools (K-12, colleges and universities, and special institutions), there were many ways of assessing, verifying, and even licensing that learning. Historically, that occurred for many skilled workers through guilds: Groups of workers set and maintained standards, and new entrants apprenticed to learn various crafts. The fields of knowledge were insular: Master weavers taught apprentices how to weave, master carpenters trained their charges in that craft, and so forth.