FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. Who does assessment?
Everyone is involved in the assessment process. Administrator, faculty and staff involvement is crucial to a useful assessment program.
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2. When is assessment done?
Generally, the annual assessment process begins in September with the identification of process objectives or outcomes. Assessment data is collected in the spring. Details can be found on the SLOA and ESOA Implementation Calendar links.
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3. What is the difference between SLOA and ESOA?
SLOA, or Student Learning Outcomes Assessment, is conducted by academic programs directly impacting student learning. ESOA, or Educational Support Outcomes Assessment, is conducted by non-instructional service units and measures outcomes that support student learning.
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4. Where do I go for support?
Support structures are currently being developed to assist faculty and staff with the assessment process. Details will be available in the near future.
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5. What are student learning outcomes?
A student learning outcome is a result, a final product of the teaching and learning process, and describes the knowledge or skill a student should have learned. Sample student learning outcomes can be viewed on the SLOA Template link.
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6. What are process objectives?
Process objectives describe what the unit intends to accomplish. These are statements that lead to improved student learning or educational support. Sample process objectives can be viewed on the ESOA Template link.
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7. How many outcomes need to be measured each year?
The number of outcomes measured each year will vary based on program or unit. Generally, three to five outcomes are identified for assessment.
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8. What are the expectations of Middle States regarding institutional effectiveness and assessment?
Standard 7
The Commission on Higher Education expects institutions to assess their overall effectiveness, with primary attention given to the assessment of student learning outcomes, which are fundamental to the accreditation process. This standard on institutional assessment has a clear relationship to and builds upon the six previous accreditation standards, each of which includes periodic assessment of effectiveness as one of its fundamental elements. Information obtained through assessment should be used as a basis for assessing the institution's effectiveness in achieving its stated goals. In addition, outcomes assessment should be linked to an institution's ongoing planning and resource allocation processes. Consequently, evidence gathered about students' development and learning outcomes can be used to make judgments about resource allocation in planning for overall institutional effectiveness and to enhance academic programs.
Institutional effectiveness is also assessed to monitor and improve the environment provided for teaching and learning and for enhancing overall student success. Assessment of student learning is addressed more particularly under Standard 14.
While the Commission expects institutions to engage in outcomes assessment, it does not prescribe a specific approach or methodology. The approach and methodology to be employed are institutional prerogatives and may vary, based on the stated mission, goals, objectives and resources of the institution. Nevertheless, an institution engaged in self-study or periodic review should provide evidence that the assessment of outcomes, particularly learning outcomes, is an ongoing institutional activity.
Outcomes assessment is not an end; it should be a means by which an institution utilizes data to improve teaching and learning and for overall institutional improvement. Therefore, it is essential that faculty, administrative staff and others be involved in the assessment process.
The Commission has long challenged its member institutions to pursue excellence, and it understands that the purpose of outcomes assessment is twofold: accountability and improvement. External forces and internal priorities require institutions of higher education to demonstrate their effectiveness and efficiency to students and to the broader public as well. The improvement of overall educational quality and the enhancement of effective teaching and learning will occur when faculty and administrators work together to implement a sound, institution-wide program of outcomes assessment.
Standard 14
Outcomes assessment involves gathering and evaluating quantitative and/or qualitative information that demonstrates congruence between the institution's mission, goals, and objectives and the actual outcomes of its educational activities. While not all of the impact of an institution on its students can be readily measured, the assessment of student learning is essential whatever the nature of the institution, its particular mission, the types of programs it offers, or the manner in which its educational programs are delivered and student learning facilitated.
The systematic assessment of student learning is essential to monitoring quality and providing the information that leads to improvement. Implemented effectively, the assessment of student learning will involve the shared commitment of students, administrators and academic professionals.
The assessment of student learning has the student as its primary focus of inquiry. It is related to the assessment of institutional effectiveness, which is important as a means to monitor and improve the environment provided for teaching and learning (see Standard 7: Institutional Assessment). Because the purpose for assessing student learning is to help students improve and to maintain academic quality, the assessment measures chosen should be those that provide the students, faculty, and others with information about student learning that is specific; address questions that faculty and the institution care about; and are useful for assessing and enhancing academic quality. The mission of the institution provides focus and direction to its outcomes assessment plan, and the plan should show how the institution translates its mission into learning goals and objectives. In order to carry out meaningful assessment activities, institutions must articulate statements of expected student learning at the institutional, program, and individual course levels, although the level of specificity will be greater at the course level. Course syllabi or guidelines should include expected learning outcomes. Moreover, institutions can be flexible in their approach to defining student learning at these different levels, such as repeating goals (some general education goals, for example) across programs or defining the goals at the institutional or program level as being a synthesis of the goals set at the program and course levels.
While the specific learning goals at each level (course, program, and institutional) need not be included in the assessment plan itself, statements of expected student learning must be available on campus to those planning or implementing assessment activities and to those evaluating the institution. These learning outcomes should be interrelated, and their continuity, coherence, and integration among the three levels should be evident.
Although an assessment plan addresses learning goals at various levels, the assessment plan does not require necessarily a parallel three-tiered approach to outcomes assessment. The institution should specify those assessment measures, methods, and analyses that will be used to validate stated expectations for student learning. In addition, while the assessment of learning first occurs on an individual student basis within a particular course, institutions may select the level or levels at which they report assessment data.
At the course level, for example, grades are an effective measure of student achievement, provided there is a demonstrable relationship between the objectives for student learning and the particular bases (such as assignments and examinations) upon which student achievement is evaluated. The assessment of learning outcomes at the program or institutional level is likely to be reflected in an aggregation or a synthesis of course-level assessments, including capstone courses, and may incorporate data from such additional measures as professional licensure examinations. It also may be based on a representative sampling of learning outcomes or of students across the institution.
In developing their assessment plans, institutions should begin, of course, with those assessment measures already in place, such as course and program completion rates, retention rates, graduation rates, and job placement rates, as well as pre- and post-testing, scores on standardized tests, performance on licensing exams, graduate school performance, and studies of alumni and former students. Institutions also should consider developing new datasets related to learning outcomes. In all instances, institutions should utilize multiple approaches, which may be qualitative and/or quantitative, to demonstrate that graduates have achieved stated learning outcomes.
Assessment is not an event but a process and should be an integral part of the life of the institution. It is the responsibility of the institution to decide what assessment tasks should be performed, in what sequence, within what time frame, and for what effect. Not everything needs to be assessed each year. For example, the assessment of major programs might be tied to program review cycles, and the assessment of general education might proceed in a sequential fashion, assessing different sets of general education outcomes each year. Such institution-wide planning should provide a broad framework within which student learning may be assessed in ways consonant with disciplinary and institutional expectations.
Finally, and most significantly, 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 to the desired academic outcomes, should be available to those who develop and carry out strategies that will improve teaching and learning.
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9. What are direct methods of assessment?
Direct methods are objective measures of knowledge or ability, direct observation of the subject such as Portfolios that collect student work over time and demonstrate students’ abilities to monitor and reflect on their work, providing longitudinal evidence of student learning and development; Course-embedded assignments, providing evidence of how well students transfer learning into a new context; Capstone projects, providing evidence of how well students integrate and apply principles, concepts, abilities into a culminating project; Observations of student behavior, providing evidence of how well students practice or apply an ability, such as how they participate in collaborative problem solving; internally or externally juried reviews of student projects or performances, providing evidence of students’ problem-solving abilities; Externally reviewed internships, providing evidence of students’ problem-solving abilities in a work environment; Performance on a case study, along with students’ analysis of how they solved the case study, providing evidence of students’ abilities to apply, synthesize and solve problems. Case studies may be used over time to track; the development of students’ knowledge or abilities; Essays blind scored across units, providing evidence of students’ abilities to represent ideas, solve problems, synthesize.
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10. What are indirect methods of assessment?
Indirect measures assess opinions or thoughts about student/client knowledge, skills, attitudes, learning experiences and perceptions, these are subjective measures such as alumni, student, or employer surveys, providing self-reports or reports from those who observe or work with students during their studies or after they graduate; student focus groups, providing interpretations or perceptions of student learning; graduate follow-up studies, providing evidence of how well an institution prepared students for advanced work; percentage of students who go on to graduate school, providing evidence of how well an institution prepared students for advanced work; retention and transfer studies, providing evidence of institutional success; job placement statistics, providing evidence of how well an institution has prepared students for entry into the work place.
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11. What is an Administrative Educational Support (AES) Unit?
AES Unit provides Distinct Services such as Accounting/Finance, Bookstores, Cashier Services, Financial Aid
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12. What are Administrative Outcomes Types?
- Process Oriented: How well the unit intends to function or improve its services?
- Focus on specific functions or administrative procedures that the unit believes should be improved
- Describe a level or volume of unit activity or
- The efficiency with which the unit’s processes are conducted or
- Compliance with external standards of “good practices in the field”
Example: The Library will be efficient in book acquisition.
- Outcome Oriented: Sees to change student/client behavior
- Concerns the ability of the client after services have been provided by the unit
- Ability of students/clients to utilize the Library resources following an orientation
Example: Graduates will have the ability to wire a résumé
- Satisfaction Oriented : Unit statements pertain to client/student satisfaction with units process/outcomes
- Overall Client/Student Survey
- More specific survey of client satisfaction with components of individual services
Example: Students will be satisfied with Library circulation services
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13. What should ESOA Outcomes be?
- Something that is under the control of the unit
- Worded in terms of what the unit will accomplish or what its clients should think, know, or do following the service
- Leading to improved service(s)
- Linked to the unit services described in the Unit Mission Statement
- Related to current level of service(s) and describes what aspect is being assessed during the current assessment period
- Describes what the client would think, know, or accomplish upon receiving service (client satisfaction)
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14. What are the Types of Assessment Used by ESOA Units?
- Attitudinal - measures client satisfaction
- Surveys should lead to Formal Rubric
- Direct – measures or counts unit services
- Volume of activity (number of persons served)
- Level of Efficiency (average time for response)
- Quality (average errors per audit)
- External – validates
- Periodic assessment of efforts to determine “good and acceptable practice” by a “neutral” person knowledgeable in the field
- Outcome – measures observation or performance
- Attitudinal Assessment
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