ASSESSMENT OF CORE SKILLS/ GENERAL EDUCATION OUTCOMES Angelina Hill, PhD Associate Director, Office of Academic Assessment

Levels of Assessment University-level Outcome Statements Program level Outcome Statements Course/Educational Experience Outcome Statements

Activity  Identify the level of assessment that applies to your project  Roughly state the core skills that you aim to assess  Be as specific as you think is necessary

Activity  Program assessment:  What courses address these outcomes, and at what level (introduce, reinforce, enhance/master)?  Course assessment:  Where in the course is the outcome addressed (e.g., activities, assignments, tests), and at what level?

Assessment Instruments  Design assessment instruments around the type of learning emphasized in the course.  What do you want your students to learn?

Direct Methods of Assessment:  Course-embedded assessment (e.g., homework assignment; essays, locally developed tests)  Grading with criteria or rubrics  Comprehensive exams  Senior thesis or major project  Portfolio evaluation  Pre and posttests  Reflective journals  Capstone projects  Internal/external juried review of performances and exhibitions  Internship and clinical evaluation  National Major Field Achievement Tests  GRE subject exams  Certification exams, licensure exams

Indirect Methods of Assessment:  Survey of perceived outcome attainment by course (survey students or faculty)  Departmental survey  Exit interviews  Alumni survey  Employer survey  Focus groups  Job placement statistics  Graduation and retention rates  Percentage of students who study abroad

Assessment Instruments  Some combination of indirect and direct measures is best (in an ideal world)  Allows for converging evidence  Example: students have low confidence in their ability to formulate a hypothesis students perform below expectations on an embedded assignment asking them to formulate a hypothesis

Assessment Instruments  What measures do you use already?  What additional measure(s) do you think would be useful?

Assessing Large Classes  Challenges include:  Giving rich individual feedback  Managing the quantity of grading (yourself, and coordinating assistants)  Avoiding testing that fosters shallow learning  Assessing a diverse mix of students  Avoiding plagiarism

Assessing Large Classes  Some strategies:  Scoring rubrics  Complex products or behaviors can be examined efficiently Identify characteristics of what you are assessing Describe the best work you could expect based on these (top category), and the worst (lowest category) Develop descriptions of intermediate-level products that are meaningful to you 1 to 3 (novice, competent, exemplary), or 1 to 5 (unacceptable, marginal, competent, very competent, outstanding)

Assessing Large Classes  Some strategies:  Using samples of student work Random or performance based  Technology Clickers, web-campus quizzes & surveys, on-line discussion boards  Automating the analysis process Setting up excel templates Structuring exams to easily capture info

Assessing Large Classes  Group projects  Peer & self evaluations  Evaluations by grad assistants, faculty committees, etc. Ensure that grading material are understood by all staff Run training sessions where they evaluate various levels of student artifacts

Assessing Large Classes  Assess background knowledge early in semester  Use cumulative tasks with more formative feedback that guides efforts on next task  Ask students to consider how topics relate to their discipline area

Assessing Multiple Sections  Direct Measures  Imbed common questions in exam for all sections  Create common writing assignment for all sections  Create a multiple choice test to give to all students at end of semester

Assessing Multiple Sections  Direct Measures cont.  Create a pre and post test to give to all students  Compare different modes of delivery!  Indirect Measures  Survey of student’s perceived learning (SALG)  Survey faculty

Assessing Multiple Sections  How to get agreement in your department??

Assessing On-line Courses  Formative assessment in on-line classes is key  Assessment processes in on-line classes should:  Enable students to self-monitor their progress Stop lecture after certain time, ask students to reflect, write down insights, submit feedback as short notes

Assessing On-line Courses  Gather regular feedback from students Pose a question via about teaching and invite students to respond Students can respond with personal  Give regular feedback to students One sentence summaries, minute papers Paper or project prospectus (brief structured first draft plan)

Developing a Timeline  How frequently can you feasibly measure each outcome?  Or, how frequently can you feasibly use a specific instrument to measure an outcome?

Establishing Criteria  Criteria help you make sense of your results.  May not be “right” the first time  Expectations that are very low or very high yield less meaningful results

Closing the Loop  Using results to make improvements is the ultimate goal!  Can you do anything about met or unmet expectations? If not, why see if their met?