Student engaging in one of LEAD's assessments on a laptop

Assessment

Measuring the LEAD Competencies

Development of a New Instrument

 

The new LEAD Competency Assessment

Developed in partnership with IDA+A (Purdue's Institutional Data Analytics + Assessment office), this new assessment measures all 20 skills in the LEAD competency framework, giving faculty and staff a validated, ready-to-use tool for evaluating leadership and professional development outcomes.


Each Likert-scale item is drawn from established, peer-reviewed survey instruments and carefully aligned with LEAD's competency definitions, so items use language that has already been conceptually and statistically validated, and results speak directly to the skills our framework was built to develop. Open-ended reflection prompts extend the language pioneered by Purdue's  Future Ready project, inviting participants to think critically about their own growth.


The assessment lives in the Purdue Qualtrics library and is designed for flexibility:

  • Use it as a whole. Deploy the full 20-skill assessment for formative or summative purposes — for example, in a pre/post-test longitudinal design that tracks growth over a semester, program, or academic year.
  • Use it piece by piece. Import individual skill modules for targeted program evaluation, pulling only the competencies most relevant to your initiative.

 

Getting Started

Importing the assessment into your own Qualtrics survey — whether new or existing — takes just a few minutes. Watch the walkthrough below to see how to bring items in.

 

Getting Support

Questions about using the assessment in your leadership development program? Contact LEAD staff at leadership@purdue.edu to talk through the best approach for your evaluation design.

Last modified: September 22, 2026