What Is Prior Learning Assessment?
Over the past 30 years, hundreds of postsecondary education institutions have developed
systems to award college credit for what people learn outside the classroom through corporate
training, work experience, civic activity, and independent study. Through a process called Prior
Learning Assessment (PLA), colleges and universities evaluate and award credit for this learning
when they determine it to be similar in content, depth, and breadth to what they consider
college-level learning.
Since 1974, CAEL has established and disseminated standards for the awarding of credit through assessment, has trained faculty evaluators, and has conducted research on the outcomes of these efforts. CAEL encourages institutions to offer a range of PLA assessment options, but our work places special emphasis on the portfolio method of assessment.
PLA Options
Prior Learning Assessment is not just one method or tool. PLA includes options such as:
- Experiential Learning Assessments: also known as individualized student portfolios or interviews
- Evaluation of Local Training: program evaluations done by individual colleges of non-collegiate instructional programs
- American Council on Education (ACE) Guides: published credit recommendations for formal instructional programs offered by non-collegiate agencies, both civilian employers and the military
- Challenge Exams:local tests developed by a college to verify learning achievement
- Advanced Placement (AP) Exams: a series of tests developed by the College Board initially for AP High School corses - 34 exams in 19 subject areas
- College Level Examination Program (CLEP) Exams: tests of college material offered by the College Board
- Excelsior College Examination Program, (formerly, Regents College Exams or ACT/PEP Exams), offered by Excelsior College, NY
- DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST) Program:, conducted by the Chauncey Group International, a division of Thomson Prometric tests knowledge of basic entry-level college material through 37 exams
CAEL’s PLA Research and Publications
CAEL’s new research study on PLA and student academic outcomes, as well as important resources to help you learn more about PLA.
Fueling the Race to Postsecondary Success: A 48-Institution Study of Prior Learning Assessment and Adult Student Outcomes
Publication Year:2010
 With support from Lumina Foundation for Education, CAEL collected data on 62,475 students at 48 higher education institutions that offer prior learning assessment (PLA). The new report presents our findings on the comparison of PLA students with non-PLA students in terms of earned degrees, persistence, and time to degree. Such a large-scale look at PLA credit earning and academic outcomes has never before been done.
Link to news articles about the study.
Prior Learning Portfolios: A Representative Collection - by Denise M. Hart and Jerry H. Hickerson
Publication Year:2009
This resource is a valuable reference tool for PLA assessors,administrators and PLA instructors, and can help train both faculty and students to understand portfolio assessment. Designed to provide you with institutional policies and procedures regarding prior learning portfolios, this text and accompanying CD-ROM contain thirteen sample portfolios from eleven different institutions, handbooks, guidelines, flow charts, and information about the location of portfolio assessment in the context of a degree. Click here to order online
Assessing Learning: Standards, Principles & Procedures, second edition - by Morry Fiddler, Catherine Marienau, and Urban Whitaker  Price: $29.95
Publication Year:2006 Since CAEL first published Urban Whitaker’s book, Assessing Learning: Standards, Principles, and Procedures, in 1989, the landscape of higher education and adult learning has changed dramatically. While respecting the Whitaker framework and the fundamental principles, authors Morry Fiddler and Catherine Marienau have added important perspectives and contexts that bring the assessment of learning to new venues, including work-based learning and non-credit-based learning. This second edition provides an updated set of standards for the assessment of learning and the awarding of credit for learning gained from experience.
Discounts are available for members.
Click here to order online
Earn College Credit for What You Know, fourth edition - by Janet Colvin  Price: $24.95
Publication Year:2006
This new edition offers the latest, most current information on prior learning assessment (PLA) for adult learners, professionals, evaluators, administrators, faculty, and training managers. Prior learning assessment is a valid, yet underused, process of evaluating and recognizing learning that helps adults to earn credit for knowledge acquired through work, training, volunteer and union activities, hobbies, and other life experiences.
Important features of this book:
- Convenient and informative question and answer format for busy working adults
- Exercises for understanding and applying learning theory
- Profiles of adult students and their successful use of prior learning assessment to complete their degrees
- Explanation of the CAEL standards for quality prior learning assessment
Discounts are available for members.
Click here to order online
PLA and Today’s Workplace - by Theresa Hoffmann, PLA Consultant and former Director of Prior Learning at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC)
Publication Year:2006 The story of UMUC’s experiences with translating workplace learning into college credits and her experiences with employer interest in PLA. She provides profiles of actual learners and the types of learning events that led to the award of college credit. Click here to download
For more publications on PLA, go to CAEL Publications
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