Resources - Question and Answer
Why are we doing assessment?
The most important reason for conducting assessment is to use the results to improve student learning. Finding out more about what and how students learn will give faculty valuable information to use to improve student learning. The standards of the Higher Learning Commission, ICCB, and IBHE all require assessment of student learning and the use of the assessment results to improve courses, programs, student learning, and teaching.
Assessment is a systematic and on-going process of collecting, interpreting, and acting on information relating to the outcomes and goals developed to support the institution's mission and purpose. Assessment answers the questions: (1) what are we trying to do? (2) how well are we doing it? and (3) how can we improve what we are doing?
Will assessment results be used to evaluate faculty?
No. Assessment of student learning outcomes and assessment plans will NOT be used to evaluate individual instructors, students or courses. Course assessment is the assessment of what students have learned as a result of completing a course.
What are some commonly used means of assessment for courses and programs?
Methods of assessment that provide direct evidence of learning include:
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Student work samples
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Collections of student work/portfolios
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Process portfolios
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Practice in the skill of revising
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Autobiographical reflective papers
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Philosophical statements
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Program portfolios
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Documentation/collection of important work used by group/department for evaluation purposes and funding requests
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Presentation portfolios
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Resumes
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Collections of important work
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Philosophical statements
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Capstone projects
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Laboratory experiments
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Course-embedded assessment, including locally developed tests, research papers, exams, reflective essays
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Presentations
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Panel discussions
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Performance in the fine arts and/or languages
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Senior seminars and/or projects
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Observations of student behavior
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Internal juried review of student projects
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External juried review of student projects
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Internships (internally and/or externally reviewed)
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Performance on a case study/problem
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Performance on national licensure examinations
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Standardized tests
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Pre- and post-tests
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Essay tests blind scored across units
Methods of assessment that provide indirect evidence of learning
- Alumni, employer, student surveys
- Focus groups
- Exit interviews with graduates
- Graduate follow-up studies
- Percentages of students who transfer
- Retention studies
- Job placement statistics
Methods of assessment that do not provide evidence of learning
- Enrollment trends
- Patterns of how courses are selected or elected by students
- Faculty to student ratios
- Percentage of students who graduate within a certain period of time
- Diversity of the student body
- Percentage of students who study abroad
- Size of the endowment
- Faculty publications (unless students are involved)
What is the feedback loop?
Two terms are used continually in assessment:
assessment cycle and feedback loop.
IECC's Assessment Outcome Model below is a basic outline of the assessment cycle. To complete an assessment cycle, faculty should:
- Establish measurable student learning outcomes
- Choose and/or design assessment instruments to measure student learning relative to desired outcomes
- Administer the assessment instrument to students
- Examine the results of the assessment
- Determine what if any changes could be made to improve student learning
- Implement some decided strategy
- Re-assess students in another semester to determine if the change improved student learning.
The feedback loop occurs when faculty use the information from assessment to help determine and employ some new strategy to improve student learning. The feedback loop can be graphically depicted as follows:
