CAAP (Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency)
Year Introduced
1988
Intended Users
Postsecondary institutions (institutional researchers, assessment and institutional effectiveness officers, academic provosts, general education chairs, accreditation chairs)
Purpose/Description
The Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) is a standardized, nationally normed assessment program from ACT that enables postsecondary institutions to assess, evaluate, and enhance student learning and general education program outcomes.
CAAP can be used to:
- Satisfy accreditation and accountability reporting requirements
- Measure students' achievement levels on a group and individual basis
- Compare students' achievement levels with national user norms
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of general education programs
- Document the performance gain of students' achievement levels over time
- Analyze what interventions may be necessary to enhance results
- Determine student eligibility for upper-division studies
- Advise individual students how to achieve academic success
- Measure student learning outcomes for Voluntary System of Accountability (Critical Thinking and Writing Essay)
Volume/Number of Users
Used by more than 500 two-year and four-year colleges and universities.
Additional Facts
CAAP brings the following benefits to general education outcomes assessment programs:
- Reliability: CAAP is a national, standardized assessment program based on professional research and development by ACT—an independent, not-for-profit organization that has provided top-quality assessments and related services for more than half a century.
- Customization: CAAP offers six independent test modules. Institutions can customize their assessment program by selecting those modules that best reflect their mission and the goals and curricula of their general education programs. Up to nine local questions can be added to each test module for detailed local information.
- Convenience: There are no national test dates with CAAP. Institutions determine when to administer the CAAP assessments on their campuses, and ACT provides the support they need to do so. Once testing has been completed, an institution simply returns the tests to ACT for scoring and reporting. ACT's outstanding customer service representatives are available to answer any questions.

