本文主要目的在彙整美國各地大學校院用來提升教學與學生學習成效的評鑑方針與策略。其主要原由是評鑑已被認為是確保學生素質的有效教學過程，也是激勵學生學習的動力之一。美國「不遺棄任何學童教育法案」（No Child Left Behind Act）及相關政策，即採用績效評鑑做為改進基本教育之主要策略。同樣地，大學校院亦可採用各種不同形式的評鑑，來診斷學生能力與學識基礎，做為學生課程安排與選擇，以及改進教師教學和其他相關措施之依據，以確保學生到畢業時能達到相當程度的水準。本文提供之資訊將有助國內關心大學生素質問題之人士，探討有效改進策略，讓所有大學生在大學時能真正受益，達到大學教育應有的標準。

The primary purpose of this paper is to examine various policies and practices of the student outcome assessment applied in the U.S. colleges and universities to assure the quality of college students. It is generally conceded that student outcome assessment is an effective instructional process, as well as a driving force, for achieving high quality of teaching and learning, as advocated in the No Child Left Behind Act and its related policy guidelines. For this reason, colleges and universities could employ various kinds of assessment to screen and sort students for appropriate curricular placements, to assist teachers in improving their teaching, and subsequently to assure that students would meet certain learning standards by the time they graduate. The information synthesized in this paper should be of value to the higher education community in Taiwan that is highly concerned about the lowering quality of college students. It offers various approaches for colleges and universities to assure that students could truly benefit from college education.