Our campus has an assessment conference earlier this month. The main message to faculty and administrators was the importance of assessing inputs and learning outcomes.

This endeavor is encouraged in part because of the upcoming accreditation visit for the university in a few more years, but program assessment has continuing value—to study and measure academic achievements, student learning, and even coincidental learning. This knowledge is not just for in-house use but for the requirement to publicly account for the student learning. The public, which contributes inordinately (through tax dollars and gifts) to higher education, wants to know that universities are contributing useful knowledge and that they can prove what their students are learning, said the keynote.

What is Assessed

The methods for designing assessments are unique to the various domain fields. There’s not a single tool that is used across various academic domains. Some factors that people need to evaluate may include the following:

1. The Program Mission (which affects the level of performance expected from learners)
2. The Evidence of Learning (both direct and indirect)
3. The Analysis of the Data (analysis regarding cause-and-effect, reliability, and teaching process)
4. The Responsibility (Whose? A shared responsibility?)
   
5. Improvements Observed (over time, conscious actions)
   
6. Informing (the publicity and outreaches to the public about the assessment work)

Appropriate SLOs

Student learning outcomes need to be appropriate to the mission, programs, degrees and students. And then the measures of learning have to surface evidence of whether or not there’s achievement of these stated learning outcomes and to what degree. How valid and reliable is the data? Is the evidence relevant (and aligned) to the learning goals? What are the different ways to assess (without having to rely on one high-stakes measure)?

A program needs to show how to analyze and use the evidence of student learning for curricular, programmatic and other types of reform. The learning has to be useful for decision-making.

Applied professional programs that are based on workplace practices may have their own student learning objectives (SLOs) and suggested measures for efficacy.

The point of assessment is to get this issue out in the open, so people in the program have a sense of shared responsibility for student learning and assessment of student learning. This helps a program to know where it wants to go collectively.

Some Tools for Program Assessment

Some assessment tools involve standardized evaluations, graduate job rates, feedback from alumni, professional business feedback about graduates’ performances on-the-job, and other channels of information. Assessments need to be meaningful, useful, and workable.

Getting the Message Out

Another angle then is to inform the public and other stakeholders about what and how well students are learning. This may be discussed with alumni. This may be shared via speeches, research publications, the college board guide, and meetings with business partners.

More Timely Considerations

How well does the program mission work with diverse constituencies?
How well does it prepare individuals for the future?
How effective is the teaching and student learning?
How effectively does the program address the acquisition, discovery and application of knowledge?
How well does the program demonstrate engagement and service to the larger community? How well does it serve public accountability?
How well does the program support research—in terms of “inquiry, creative practice, and social responsibility”?

E-learning programs undergo plenty of programmatic evaluation as well. Getting a generalized view of the importance of assessment helps unify a diverse campus around a critical issue to the health of higher learning.