The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the assessment of the quality of learning in higher education is conducted through performance assessment and to identify what conflicts arise between two paradigms. First, to depict the structure of the arguments of learning assessment we set two axes, one of which was the axis of direct measures vs. indirect measures; the other was the axis of psychometrics paradigm vs. alternative assessment paradigm. Next, we observed two trends in present performance assessment movements which reflect two contrastive paradigms, even though performance assessment was originally proposed under the alternative assessment paradigm. One trend is to construct an objective standardized test of performance assessment type, a representative example being the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) adopted by the OECD's Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). The other trend is to collaboratively develop performance assessments advanced by Alverno College and the Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) Project of the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). Lastly, we produced the contrast between limited academic learning and the whole student engagement as the third axis of learning assessment arguments. We can analyze the types of present learning assessment activities along these three axes.