Collegiate Learning Assessment.

The Collegiate Learning Assessment is the test the students in the learning study took throughout their four years as undergraduates to measure their higher order cognitive skills. Those skills include critical thinking, complex reasoning, and written communication. According to an article on The Chronicle of Higher Education website, the students took the CLA in the fall of 2005, the spring of 2007, and the spring of 2009.

"The CLA helps institutions improve undergraduate education through assessment, professional development, best practices and collaboration," the CLA website said.

The website also says the CLA "allows institutions to benchmark where they stand and how much progress their students have made relative to the progress of students at other colleges."

In a press release from The Council for Aid to Education, they said the study strengthened the validity of the CLA. It said "improvements in CLA results over time were closely aligned with multiple measures of student learning."

The report said students in liberal arts fields scored higher on the CLA, but it also said the findings of the study don't "preclude the possibility that students in other fields are developing subject-specific or occupationally- relevant skills."