December 14, 2004
Colleagues,
Over the next several years we will have an opportunity to take a close evaluative look at ourselves as an institution as we prepare for our reaccreditation visit from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. This visit will occur sometime during the 2007/2008 academic year, and our preparation will involve a comprehensive self-study that all of you will have the opportunity to participate in if you choose to do so. One of our challenges and one of our opportunities for this reaccreditation cycle is that we will be operating under a new set of criteria with associated core components that must be addressed as we move toward reaccreditation and enhanced institutional effectiveness.
One of the key changes in the new criteria is a renewed and even stronger emphasis on understanding and improving student learning via assessment and the evaluation processes and systems that ensure that learning is central to institutional effectiveness and educational quality. In fact, student learning and assessment as a core strategy for understanding and improving learning are now embedded directly into the criteria versus being an added-on emphasis, as was true in the old criteria. Along with a stronger emphasis on assessment of student learning, however, comes what I think will be a more rational and sensible approach, which I want to address.
Assessment of student learning has become a buzz in higher education over approximately the past 10 - 15 years. The original intent of assessment was always to place the focus on improvement of student learning. Somewhere along the way, however, the focus often became oriented on the process of assessment itself, and it became too easy to lose sight of the outcome of improved student learning.
The HLC adopted an assessment matrix several years ago to allow institutions to evaluate where they stood on assessment processes and implementation. This matrix is cited in our current institutional assessment plan (http://web.sau.edu/assessment/2004%20Assessment%20Plan%20Draft%20April%2027,%202004.htm) and more information can be found on the HLC web site (http://www.ncahigherlearningcommission.org/resources/assessment/index.html). One of the unintended consequences of this matrix was to further orient people to inputs and process rather than results and outcomes. Currently, the HLC is reducing emphasis on the assessment matrix, as it now expects institutions to be getting to actual impact on student learning at multiple levels versus just implementing assessment (the matrix may still be a useful tool for institutions that are still in the beginning phases of assessment). As a result, HLC now uses a set of student learning-related questions that institutions should be focusing on (more below). These questions focus more out results and outcomes than they do on inputs and processes.
To help continue our institutional conversation about assessment of student learning, I am providing you with a condensed version of assessment-related information that I have been able to receive and have discussions about at several HLC meetings this fall. I do want you to remember that assessment of student learning is as much of an art as it is a science, and "it is messy" at times. None-the-less, assessment is worthwhile, if it leads to meaningful conversations and the improvement of student learning. Assessment and evaluation must also be owned by all of us, as these cannot be the responsibility of one person, or even a few people.
Much of the following information is taken and condensed, with permission, from presentations made by Dr. Lynn Priddy and her colleagues at HLC meetings I attended this fall (I have taken editorial license and added emphasis and commentary at times). Dr. Priddy is the Director of Education and Training for the Higher Learning Commission.
1. Assessment is about student learning outcomes (at the course/major/programmatic and the institutional levels). Although we will be measuring many other aspects of the institution to improve institutional effectiveness, if these aspects do not directly relate to student learning outcomes, we will refer to these other measurement processes as evaluation. This is the way that the HLC has chosen to further focus institutions on the improvement of student learning outcomes, and this does not mean that assessment will be limited to just curricular outcomes. We may have student learning outcomes that are achieved or enhanced outside of the classroom, which gives us the opportunity to expand our discussion of what constitutes effective learning environments. Ultimately, for our purposes at St. Ambrose, it may not matter so much how we define assessment or evaluation, as long as we are doing it, but I want you to be aware of how these terms will be used by the HLC for the foreseeable future.
2. Effective assessment and improvement of student learning is a matter of commitment, NOT a matter of compliance.
3. Assessment is central to improving student learning. Assessment is a strategy for accountability, institutional distinctiveness, accreditation, and effectiveness. More importantly, however, assessment is a strategy for understanding and improving student learning and educational quality.
4. Institutions should be having conversations prompted by five fundamental questions (we have begun some of these conversations, but the questions may have been different).
a. How are your stated learning outcomes appropriate to your mission, program, and degrees?
b. What evidence do you have that students achieve your stated learning outcomes?
c. In what ways do you analyze and use evidence of student learning?
d. How do you ensure shared responsibility for assessment of student learning?
e. How do you evaluate and improve the effectiveness of assessment of student learning efforts?
5. The primary purpose of assessment of student learning is to contribute to the continuous improvement of student learning by documenting the extent to which a) students are achieving the learning that the institution as a whole and the faculty intend, and b) students are meeting or exceeding the published goals and measurable objectives for general education and disciplinary learning that are a reflection of those broader institutional goals.
6. Effective assessment of student learning is the degree to which the college and its academic programs a) demonstrate that they are actively using the results of assessment to discover where students could be learning more and better (we are becoming much more effective at this), and b) from discussion of those findings, recommend and make changes that result in documented improvements in student learning (we have made some strides here).
7. The new criteria for accreditation and the associated core components (you will hear much more about these in the upcoming months and years) directly link student learning and assessment to our accrediting relationship with the HLC.
8. There are several key messages on assessment from the HLC that we need to be aware of.
a. Assessment of student learning efforts should be meaningful and useful to us and to students' learning.
b. There is no one-size-fits-all methodology for how to assess or how to design assessment efforts.
c. There is no dogma held by the HLC about how assessment should be done (other than the focus on student learning).
d. There are many ways to measure student learning and no one way is the only way.
9. There are also several key understandings of assessment of student learning.
a. There is no expectation of what effective assessment of student learning must look like, but it should be informed by scholarship and good practice.
b. Effective assessment deals with what is meaningful and useful related to student learning.
c. Assessment is not about amassing data, but rather about analyzing and using information to make a difference in student learning.
d. Successful assessment of student learning efforts are characterized by fits, starts, revisions, and openness to experimentation (great opportunities for scholarship here).
e. Effective assessment of student learning employs a workable process with a reasonable schedule.
f. Effective assessment of student learning requires and reflects a sustained effort and committed leadership.
10. What will site visitors from the HLC be looking for when they visit us in 2007/2008? They will be looking for impact and results of our efforts to understand and improve student learning via assessment.
a. Clarity and relevance in learning goals: clear, publicly articulated learning outcomes at multiple levels appropriate to the organization’s mission, context, educational goals, programs, and degrees.
b. Intentionality and purpose in compilation of assessment results in comparison of those stated learning outcomes at multiple levels: processes for gathering data on student learning and documentation that the organization has data on student learning that is useful and meaningful to the organization.
c. Systematic analysis and use of student learning evidence: processes that use results to confirm and improve student learning, educational quality, and organizational effectiveness.
d. Achievement of student learning outcomes: evidence that confirms students are achieving the stated learning outcomes of the organization.
e. Shared responsibility for and commitment to effective assessment of student learning: processes for and documentation of broad participation in analyzing and using student learning evidence as a means for building commitment to educational improvement.
f. Evaluation and improvement of assessment of student learning efforts: processes for and documentation that the organization is making assessment useful and meaningful; i.e., a matter of commitment versus a matter of compliance.
Essentially, site visitors will use the five fundamental questions liberally across the University to surface evidence and to engage the University in a discussion of student learning and educational quality. The evidence surfaced through the questions (most likely in the categories in "10" above) will then be used in conjunction with the criteria and core components. The University will not be evaluated on the basis of the questions – the questions are merely the framework for identifying evidence that will be used as the site visitors evaluate us against the criteria and core components.
So in sum, we are entering a new phase in our understanding of the purposes of assessment and evaluation, with a renewed and increased focus on improving student learning (which we can all relate to), rather than just an emphasis on process. Another way of looking at all of the issues related to assessment and evaluation, is that we are looking at a way to bring evidence-based decision making to the art and science of improving student learning.
I am looking forward to continuing these conversations with you as we move forward at St. Ambrose.
In the meantime (we will likely ask you more formally later), please let me know the types of tools your department could use to make assessment more meaningful and useful in your department.
Regards,
Paul
Dr. Paul C. Koch
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Assistant Vice President of Academic
Affairs for Assessment
x6196
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