• a statement of institutional mission and goals
• identification of intended program, departmental and institutional outcomes or results
• effective assessment of the accomplishment of the outcomes or results
• use of the assessment results to improve the program, department and institution

Institutional effectiveness has been embraced by regional accreditation agencies like the Middle States Commission on Higher Education as well as some state governmental agencies.

Assessment Plans

Delaware Tech established and implemented a new Institutional Effectiveness Structure to assure comprehensive assessment and improvement in 2004. The structure has three components which together demonstrate effectiveness through the assessment and improvement of: (1) mission goal outcomes at the institutional level; (2) student learning outcomes at the program level; and (3) educational support outcomes at the unit level.

The College assesses mission goal outcomes at the institutional level across programs, service units and campuses. Academic programs assess student learning outcomes at the program level and educational support units assess effectiveness in contributing to an atmosphere conducive to learning.

The Mission Goal Outcomes Assessment component provides a framework in which the College can demonstrate its effectiveness in fulfilling its mission at the institutional level.

The Student Learning Outcomes Assessment (SLOA) component provides a framework in which college instructional programs can demonstrate the improvement of student learning.

The Educational Support Outcomes Assessment (ESOA) component provides a framework in which educational support units can demonstrate the improvement of service delivery outcomes.

The Institutional Effectiveness Structure explains:

• Required elements in all assessment plans
• Responsibilities for assessment and improvement, and
• Guidelines, actions steps and timelines for each assessment component
  
  

Assessment

The ultimate goal of assessment is to improve student learning. According to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, "the purpose of assessment is to engage the campus community collectively in a systematic and continuing process to create shared learning goals and to enhance student learning."

Delaware Technical & Community College has a firm foundation for assessment of student learning outcomes. Program Graduate Competencies and Core Curriculum Competencies are the College student learning goals.

The Middles States Commission on Higher Education has established Characteristics of Excellence relating to assessment and student learning. Two of the standards that focus on assessment follow:

Standard 7 - Institutional Assessment

The institution has developed and implemented an assessment plan and process that evaluates its overall effectiveness in achieving its mission and goals and its compliance with accreditation standards.

Context

Assessment may be characterized as the third element of a four-step planning-assessment cycle:

1.     Developing clearly articulated written statements, expressed in observable terms, of key institutional and unit-level goals that are based on the involvement of the institutional community, as discussed under Standard 1 (Mission and Goals);

2.     Designing intentional objectives or strategies to achieve those goals, as discussed under Standard 2 (Planning, Allocation, and Institutional Renewal):

3.     Assessing achievement of those key goals; and

4.     Using the results of those assessments to improve programs and services, as discussed under Standard 2 (Planning, Allocation, and Institutional Renewal), with appropriate links to the institution’s ongoing planning and resource allocation processes.

The effectiveness of an institution rests upon the contribution that each of the institution’s programs and services makes toward achieving the goals of the institution as a whole.  This standard on instructional assessment thus builds upon all other accreditation standards, each of which includes periodic assessment of effectiveness as one of its fundamental elements.  This standard ties together those assessment into an integrated whole to answer the question, “As an institutional community, how well are we collectively doing what we say we are doing?” and, in particular, “How do we support student learning, a fundamental aspect of institutional effectiveness?”  Because student learning is a fundamental component of the mission of most institutions of higher education, the assessment of student learning is an essential component of the assessment of institutional effectiveness and is the focus of Standard 14 (Assessment of Student Learning).  Self-studies can thus document compliance with Standard 7 by summarizing the assessments of each accreditation standard into conclusions about the institution’s overall achievement of its key goals.  

The fundamental question asked in the accreditation process is, “Is the institution fulfilling its mission and achieving its goals?”  This is precisely the question that assessment is designed to answer, making assessment essential to the accreditation process.  Assessment processes help to ensure the following:

• Institutional and program-level goals are clear to the public, students, faculty, and staff;
• Institutional programs and resources are organized and coordinated to achieve institutional and program-level goals;
• The institution is indeed achieving its mission and goals; and
• The institution is using assessment results to improve student learning and otherwise advance the institution.

While the Commission expects institutions to assess institutional effectiveness, it does not prescribe a specific approach or methodology.  The institution is responsible for determining its expected goals and the objectives or strategies for achieving them at each level (institutional and unit), assessment approaches and methodologies, sequence, and time frame. These may vary, based on the mission, goals, organization, and resources of the institution.  Whatever the approach, effective assessment processes are useful, cost-effective, reasonably accurate and truthful, carefully planned, and organized, systematic, and sustained.

Useful assessment processes help faculty and staff make appropriate decisions about improving programs and services, developing goals and plans, and making resource allocations.  To assist with interpretation and use of assessment results, assessment measures and indicators have defined minimally acceptable performance targets. Because institutions, their students, and their environments are continually evolving, effective assessments cannot be static; they must be reviewed periodically and adapted to remain useful. 

Cost-effective assessment processes yield dividends that justify the institution’s investment in them, particularly in terms of faculty and staff time.  To this end, institutions may begin by considering assessment measures, indicators, and “flags,” and “scorecards” already in place, such as retention, graduation, transfer, and placement rates, financial ratios, and surveys. New or refined measures may then be added for those goals and objectives for which evidence of achievement is not already available, concentrating on the institution’s most important goals. Effective assessments are simple rather than elaborate, and may focus on just a few key goals in each program, unit, and curriculum.

Reasonably-accurate and truthful assessment processes yield results that can be used with confidence to make appropriate decisions.  Because there is no one perfectly accurate assessment tool or strategy, institutions should use multiple kinds of measures to assess goal achievement.  Assessments may be quantitative and/or qualitative and developed locally or by an external organization.  All assessment tools and strategies should clearly relate to the goals they are assessing and should be developed with care; they should not be merely anecdotal information nor collection of information that happen to be on hand.  Strategies to assess student learning should include direct - clear, visible, and convincing – evidence, rather than solely indirect evidence of student learning such as surveys and focus groups.

Planned assessment processes that purposefully correspond to institutional goals that they are intended to assess promote attention to those goals and ensure that disappointing outcomes are appropriately addressed.  Institutions often have a variety of plans, such has as a strategic plan, academic plan, financial plan, enrollment plan, capital facilities master plan, and technology plan.  Just as such plans should be interrelated to ensure that they work synergistically to advance the institution, assessments should also be interrelated.  At many institutions, effective institutional planning begins with academic planning, which in turn drives the other plans.  If the academic plan calls for a new academic program, for example, the technology plan should ensure faculty and students in the new program will be able to use appropriate instructional technologies.  Assessments of the technology plan should evaluate not just whether instructional technologies have been put in place but also how effectively those technologies have helped students to achieve the program’s key learning outcomes.

Organized, systematized, and sustained assessment processes are ongoing, not once-and- done.  There should be clear interrelationships among institutional goals, program- and unit-level goals, and course-level goals.  Assessments should relate clearly to important goals, and improvements should clearly stem from assessment results.

As noted earlier, because student learning is a fundamental component of the mission of most institutions of higher learning, the assessment of student learning is an essential component of the assessment institutional effectiveness.  An institution may therefore create institutional effectiveness documentation that includes a component on assessing student learning (see Standard 14; Assessment of Student Learning), or it may create a bridge between two separate sets of documentation, one for the assessment of student learning and one for other aspects of institutional effectiveness.

A commitment to the assessment of institutional effectiveness requires a parallel commitment to ensuring its use.  Assessment information, derived in a manner appropriate to the institution and to its desired outcomes, should be available to and used by those who develop institutional goals and carry out strategies to achieve them.  As discussed under Standard 2 (Planning, Resource Allocation, and Institutional Renewal), an accredited institution uses the results of assessment for institutional renewal: to maintain, support, and improve its programs and services.  Assessment information should be used as a basis for assessing the institution’s effectiveness in achieving its stated goals, for monitoring and improving the environment for student learning, and for enhancing overall student success; to these ends, it should be linked to the institution’s ongoing planning and resources allocation processes. 

Assessment results also should be used to evaluate the assessment process itself, leading to modifications that improve its relevance and effectiveness. 

Fundamental Elements of Institutional Assessment

An accredited institution is expected to possess or demonstrate the following attributes or activities:

• documented, organized, and sustained assessment processes to evaluate and improve the total range of programs and services; achievement of institutional mission, goals, and plans; and compliance with accreditation standards that meets the following criteria:

• a foundation in the institution's mission and clearly articulated institutional, unit-level, and program-level goals that encompass all programs, services, and initiative and are appropriately integrated with one another (see Standards 1: Mission and Goals and 2: Planning, Resource Allocation, and Institutional Renewal);
• systematic, sustained, and thorough use of multiple qualitative and/or quantitative measures  that:
  • maximize the use of existing data and information;
  • clearly and purposefully relate to the goals they are assessing;
  • are of sufficient quality that results can be used with confidence to inform decisions;
• support and collaboration of faculty and administration;
• clear realistic guidelines and a timetable, supported by appropriate investment of institutional resources;
• sufficient simplicity, practicality, detail, and ownership to be sustainable;
• periodic evaluation of effectiveness and comprehensiveness of the institution’s assessment processes;
• evidence that assessment results are shared and discussed with appropriate constituents and used in institutional planning, resource allocation, and renewal (see Standard 2: Planning, Resource Allocation, and Institutional Renewal) to improve and gain efficiencies in programs, services and processes, including activities specific to the institution’s mission (e.g., services, outreach, research); and
• written institutional (strategic) plan(s) that reflect(s) consideration of assessment results.

Institutions and evaluators must consider the totality that is created by the fundamental elements and any other relevant institutional information or analysis.  Fundamental elements and contextual statements should not be applied separately as checklists.  Where an institution does not possess or demonstrate evidence of a particular Fundamental Element, the institution may demonstrate through alternative information and analysis that it meets the standard.


Optional Analysis and Evidence

In addition to the evidence inherent within or necessary to document the fundamental elements above, the following, although not required, may facilitate the institution's own analysis relative to this accreditation standard:

• analysis of the institutional culture for assessing institutional effectiveness, including:
  • the views of faculty and administrators on assessment;
  • faculty and administrators’ understanding of their roles in assessing institutional effectiveness;
  • campus-wide efforts to encourage, recognize, and value efforts to assess institutional effectiveness and to improve programs and services;
• analysis of the quality and usefulness of institutional support for assessment efforts, including the quality and usefulness of:
  • written statements of expectations for assessment work;
  • policies and governance structures to support institutional assessment activities;
  • administrative, technical, and financial support for institutional assessment activities;
  • professional development opportunities and resources for faculty and staff to learn how to assess institutional effectiveness and how to use the results;
• clear, appropriate criteria for determining whether key institutional goals and objectives have been achieved;
• analysis of whether the institution has sufficient, convincing, written evidence that it is achieving its mission and its key institutional goals;
• analysis of results of surveys of students and other relevant groups;
• review of evaluations of special, mission driven programs or projects, with recommendation for improvement, and evidence of action based on recommendations;
• evidence that institutional assessment findings are used to:
  • improve student success;
  • review and improve programs and services;
  • plan, conduct, and support professional development activities;
  • assist in planning and budgeting for the provision of programs and services;
  • support decisions about strategic goals, plans, and resource allocation;
  • inform appropriate constituents about the institution and its programs;
• evidence of renewal of strategies, made in response to assessment results [included also under Standard 2 Optional Analyses]; or
• analysis of evidence that renewal strategies made in response to assessment results have had the desired effect in improving programs, services, and initiatives.

Standard 14 - Assessment of Student Learning

Assessment of student learning demonstrates that, at graduation, or other appropriate points, the institution's students have knowledge, skills, and competencies consistent with institutional and appropriate higher education goals.

Context

Assessment of student learning may be characterized as the third element of a four-step teaching-learning-assessment cycle:

1.     Developing clearly articulated written statements, expressed in observable terms, of key learning outcomes: the knowledge, skills, and competencies that student are expected to exhibit upon completion of a course, academic program, co-curricular program, general education requirement, or other specific set of experiences, as discussed under Standard 11(Educational Offerings);
2.     Designing courses, programs, and experiences that provide intentional opportunities for student to achieve those learning outcomes, again as discussed under Standard 11;
3.     Assessing student achievement of those key learning outcomes; and
4.     Using the results of those assessments to improve teaching and learning.

This standard on assessment of student learning builds upon Standards 11 (Educational Offerings), 12 (General Education), and 13 (Related Educational Offerings), each of which includes assessment of student learning among its fundamental elements.  This standard ties together those assessments into an integrated whole to answer the question,” Are our students learning what we want them to learn?”  Self-studies can thus document compliance with Standard 14 by summarizing the assessments of Standards 11 through 13 into conclusions about overall achievement of the institution’s key student learning outcomes.

Because student learning is at the heart of the mission of most institutions of higher education, the assessment of student learning is an essential component of the assessment of institutional effectiveness (see Standard 7: Institutional Assessment), which additionally monitors the environment provided for teaching and learning and the achievement of other aspects of the institution’s mission, vision, and strategic goals and plans.

The fundamental question asked in the accreditation process is, “Is the institution fulfilling its mission and achieving its goals?”  This is precisely the question that assessment is designed to answer, making assessment essential to the accreditation process.  Assessment processes help to ensure that following:

• Institutional and program-level goals are organized and clear to the public, students, faculty, and staff;
• Institutional programs and resources are organized and coordinated to achieve institutional and program-level goals;
• The institution is providing academic opportunities of quality;
• The institution is indeed achieving its mission and goals; and
• Assessment results help the institution to improve student learning and otherwise advance the institution.

Assessment is not an event but a process that is an integral part of the life of the institution, and an institution should be able to provide evidence that the assessment of student learning outcomes and use of results is an ongoing institutional activity.  While some of the impact of an institution on its students may not be easily immediately measured – some institutions, for example, aim for student to develop lifelong learning habits that may not be fully developed for years – the overall assessment of student learning is expected whatever the nature of the institution, its mission, the types of programs it offers, or the manner in which its educational programs are delivered and student learning facilitated.

While the Commission expects institutions to assess student learning, it does not prescribe a specific approach or methodology.  The institution is responsible for determining its expected learning outcomes and strategies for achieving them at each level (institutional, program, and course), assessment approaches and methodologies, sequence, and time frame. These may vary, based on the mission, goals, organization, and resources of the institution.  Whatever the approach, effective assessment processes are useful, cost-effective, reasonably accurate and truthful, carefully planned, and organized, systematic, and sustained.

Useful assessment processes help faculty and staff make appropriate decisions about improving programs and services, developing goals and plans, and making resource allocations.  To assist with interpretation and use of assessment results, assessment measures and indicators have defined minimally acceptable performance targets.  Because institutions, their students, and their environments are continually evolving, effective assessments cannot be static; they must be reviewed periodically and adapted in order to remain useful.

Cost-effective assessment processes are designed so that their value is in proportion to the time and resources devoted to them.  To this end, institutions can begin by considering assessment measures already in place, including direct evidence such as capstone projects, field experience evaluations, and performance on licensure examinations and indirect evidence such as retention and graduation rates and alumni surveys.  New or refined measures can then be added for those learning outcomes for which direct evidence of student learning is not already available, concentrating on the most important institutional and program-level learning outcomes. Effective assessments are simple rather than elaborate and may focus on just a few key goals in each program, unit, and curriculum.

Reasonably-accurate and truthful assessment processes yield results that can be use with confidence to make appropriate decisions.  Such assessment processes have the following characteristics:

Because there is not one perfectly accurate assessment tool or strategy, institutions should use multiple kinds of measures to assess goal achievement.  Assessments may be quantitative and/or qualitative and developed locally or by an external organization.

Assessment tools and strategies should be developed with care; they should not be not merely anecdotal information nor collections of information that happen to be on hand,

Student learning assessment processes should yield direct – clear, visible, and convincing – evidence of student learning. Tangible examples of student learning, such as completed tests, assignments, projects, portfolios, licensure examinations, and field experience evaluations, are direct evidence of student learning.  Indirect evidence, including retention, graduation, and placement rates and surveys of students and alumni, can be vital to understanding the teaching-learning process and student success (or lack thereof), but such information alone is insufficient evidence of student learning unless accompanied by direct evidence.  Grades alone are indirect evidence, as a skeptic might claim that high grades are solely the result of lax standards.  But the assignments and evaluations that form the basis for the grades can be direct evidence if they are accompanied by clear evaluation criteria that have a demonstrable relationship to key learning goals.

Planned assessment processes that clearly and purposefully correspond to learning outcomes that they are intended to assess promote attention to those goals and ensure that disappointing outcomes are appropriately addressed.

Organized, systematized, and sustained assessment processes are ongoing, not once-and-done.  There should be clear interrelationships among institutional goals, program- and unit-level goals, and course-level goals. Assessments should clearly relate to important goals, and improvements should clearly stem from assessment results. 

As noted earlier, because student learning is a fundamental component of the mission of most institutions of higher education, the assessment of student learning is an essential component of the assessment of institutional effectiveness.  An institution may therefore create institutional effectiveness documentation that includes a component on assessing student learning (see Standard 14: Assessment of Student Learning), or it may create a bridge between two separate sets of documentation, one for the assessment of student learning and one for other aspects of institutional effectiveness.

The improvement of overall educational quality and the enhancement of effective teaching and learning is most likely to occur when faculty and administrators work together to implement a sound, institution-wide program of assessment.  Because the faculty guide decisions about curriculum and pedagogy, the effective assessment of student learning is similarly guided by the faculty and supported by the administration.

A commitment to assessment of student learning requires a parallel commitment to ensuring its use.  Assessment information, derived in a manner appropriate to the institution and its desired academic outcomes, should be available to and used by those who develop and carry out strategies that will improve teaching and learning.

Assessment results should also be used to evaluate the assessment process itself, leading to modifications that improve its relevance and effectiveness.


Fundamental Elements of Assessment of Student Learning

An accredited institution is expected to possess or demonstrate the following attributes or activities:

• clearly articulated statements of expected student learning (see Standard 11: Educational Offerings), at all levels (institution, degree/program, course) and for all programs that aim to foster student learning and development, that are:

  • appropriately integrated with one another;
  • consonant with the institution’s mission; and
  • consonant with the standards of higher education and of the relevant disciplines;
• a documented, organized, and sustained assessment process to evaluate and improve student learning that meets the following criteria:

  • systematic, sustained, and thorough use of multiple qualitative and/or quantitative measures that:

    • maximize the use of existing data and information;
    • clearly and purposefully relate to the goals they are assessing;
    • are of sufficient quality that results can be used with confidence to inform decisions; and
    • include direct evidence of student learning;
  • support and collaboration of faculty and administration;
  • clear, realistic guidelines and timetable, supported by appropriate investment of institutional resources;
  • sufficient simplicity, practicality, detail, and ownership to be sustainable; and
  • periodic evaluation of the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of the institution’s student learning assessment processes;
• assessment results that provide sufficient, convincing evidence that students are achieving key institutional and program learning outcomes;
• evidence that student learning assessment information is shared and discussed with appropriate constituents and is used to improve teaching and learning; and
• documented use of student learning assessment information as part of institutional assessment.
  

Institutions and evaluators must consider the totality that is created by the fundamental elements and any other relevant institutional information or analysis.  Fundamental elements and contextual statements should not be applied separately as checklists.  Where an institution does not possess or demonstrate evidence of a particular Fundamental Element, the institution may demonstrate through alternative information and analysis that it meets the standard.

Optional Analysis and Evidence

In addition to the evidence inherent within or necessary to document the fundamental elements above, the following, although not required, may facilitate the institution's own analysis relative to this accreditation standard:

• analysis of institutional support for student learning assessment efforts, including:
  • written statements of expectations for student learning assessment work;
  • policies and governance structures to support student learning assessment;
  • administrative, technical, and financial support for student learning assessment activities and for implementing changes resulting from assessment; and
  • professional development opportunities and resources for faculty to learn how to assess student learning, how to improve their curricula, and how to improve their teaching;

• analysis of the clarity and appropriateness of standards for determining whether key learning outcomes have been achieved;

• evidence of workable, regularized, collaborative institutional processes and protocols for ensuring the dissemination, analysis, discussion, and use of assessment results among all relevant constituents within a reasonable schedule;

• analysis of the use of student learning assessment findings to:

  • assist students in improving their learning;
  • improve pedagogies, curricula and instructional activities;
  • review and revise academic programs and support services;
  • plan, conduct, and support professional development activities:
  • assist in planning and budgeting for the provision of academic programs and services;
  • support other institutional assessment efforts (see Standard 7: Institutional Assessment) and decisions about strategic goals, plans, and resource allocation; and
  • inform appropriate constituents about the institution and its programs;
• analysis of evidence that improvements in teaching, curricula, and support made in response to assessment results have had the desired effect in improving teaching, learning, and the success of other activities;
• analysis of the institutional culture for assessing student learning, including:
  • the views of faculty and institutional leaders on assessment;
  • faculty members’ understanding of their roles in assessing student learning;
  • the quality and usefulness of institutional support for student learning assessment efforts;
  • campus-wide efforts to encourage, recognize, and value efforts to assess student learning and to improve curricula and teaching;
  • evidence of collaboration in the development of statements of expected student learning and assessment strategies;
• evidence that information appropriate to the review of student retention, persistence, and attrition, is used to reflect whether these are consistent with student and institutional expectations [also included in Standard 8 Optional Analyses];
• evidence of the utilization of attrition information to ascertain characteristics of students who withdrew prior to attaining their educational objectives and, as appropriate, implementation of strategies to improve retention [also included under Optional Analyses in Standard 8];
• analysis of teaching evaluations, including identification of good practices; or
• analysis of course, department, or school reports on classroom assessment practices and their outcomes, including grading approaches and consistency.