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Measurement and evaluation of students' achievement are an important aspect to make sure that students really understand the course content and monitor students' achievement level. Performance is not only reflected from the numbers of high achievers of the students, but also on quality of the grade obtained; does the grade "A" truly reflective of a high achiever student. As part of quality improvement, standard setting for students' examination scoring should be set up for courses offered in the institutions. Setting the cut scores of the performance standard is important in making sure the performance is of an expected standard. Commonly standard settings done through experts' judgement based on their knowledge and experience on the subject's matter and estimation made often too difficult and confusing for many. This paper discusses implementation of Objective Standard Setting (OSS) using Rasch measurement model in a Malaysian Institution of Higher Learning. This method gives an advantage for academic administrators to scientifically establish the standards or cut scores focusing on validity of the test being used and the Rasch measurement properties of the resultant scale.

Learning experience has always been influenced by not only the academic materials presented to students, but also others factors within the surroundings of the students. Assessment is conducted to monitor the students' total learning experience (TLE) throughout their academic tenure-ship at the higher learning institution. UKM has taken the initiative to assess their students' TLE annually. The findings then serve as their benchmark on the enhancement of the facilities provided and the progression of the students' characteristics. UKM prepared a comprehensive TLE assessment on the infrastructure provided, the soft skill development and on personality traits. This paper discusses the findings on UKM's engineering students' TLE in relation to the infrastructure provided by UKM. The students perceived that they learned more from their industrial training provided with mean measured at -1.10 logit. Where else, the least contributing factor towards the students' learning experience is the college facilities with mean measured at +0.50 logit.

Student performance of technical expertise at the end of the learning process is very important. The achievement of Course Outcomes (COs) must be tracked every semester and counteractive action must be carried out if the achievement does not meet the performance criteria that has been set. This paper will assess student performance for each CO for the course, Material Technology using direct and indirect assessment and triangulation as the result of continuous quality improvement (CQI). Direct assessment was measured using assignment, final examination, project presentation and laboratory report, while indirect assessment was measured using a pre-test and post-test survey. The item constructs of pretest and post-test questionnaires were validated using the Rasch measurement model. The direct and indirect assessments were compared and the results revealed that differences exist between students' perception of their learning and their actual learning. The findings indicate that there is an inconsistency between students' perception of their learning (indirect assessment) and their attainment of knowledge and practical skills as rated by their lecturers (direct assessment). Thus, indirect measurement alone is not a valid measure of student learning achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]