Creating and Sustaining Change: Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes (original) (raw)
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Assessment of student learning outcomes at the institutional level
New Directions for Community Colleges, 2004
While the assessment movement has spanned more than two decades, there is great variation in its degree of implementation among community colleges throughout the country. Building on literature in the field, this chapter discusses and gives examples of concepts and major areas involved in the assessment of student learning at the institutional level.
The Impact of Accreditation on Student Learning Outcomes
International Journal of Knowledge Society Research, 2016
In recent years, student outcomes in higher education has captured the interest and concern of accreditation communities, governments, employers as well as international organizations. Student outcomes is becoming the principal gauge of higher education's effectiveness and accreditation bodies expect learning outcomes to be well defined, articulated, assessed, verified, and used as a guide for future improvement. The paper investigates the impact of accreditation on student outcomes in higher education and examines the impact of two accreditation bodies on student outcomes, namely: The National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) established by the Higher Council of Education in Saudi Arabia and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Inc. (ABET). Results from a course in Mathematics at Effat University, Jeddah, KSA, showed how important the learning outcome is in the process of re-evaluating strategies and methodologies used in the learni...
Assessing Institutional Learner Outcomes
External reviews of higher education institutions focus on verifying or clarifying performance and results based on mission, criteria, or clearly stated or implied set(s) of standards. Moreover, there is increased interest in program-level accreditation to support and demonstrate enhanced quality; the review process at this level also is based on meeting internal and external criteria and/or standards. The Center for Psychology in Schools and Education (1997) recommends that effective learning should include multiple assessments for diagnostic, process, and outcome purposes. There are national and international associations who advocate certain assessment strategies to ensure appropriate documentation of student performance; however, because these are not involved in the accreditation or audit process the strategies may or may not be elements of the criteria used for review purposes. Organizational theory suggests that organizational behavior is based on previous reality generated from the stream of experience; previous experience argues for regulatory compliance for fear of sanction ranging from conditions, such as refusing reaffirmation or granting of initial approval. Indicators and metrics in this minimaxing regime prioritize data for performance reviews over accurately measuring student learning. Universities thus err on the side of caution, focusing more on traditional testing methodology instead of recognizing the usefulness of different assessment techniques as feedback that enhances student learning as well as documenting student learning itself. This paper discusses the tension between regulatory compliance and good design for student learning and its effect on assessment strategies. It also posits suggestions on how to mitigate some of the effects in order to balance institutional, faculty, and individual learner needs.
Assessing Learning Outcomes in Higher Education: From Practice to Systematization
2023
Accountability systems in higher education ensure that academic programs meet learning outcomes and address student cognitive and affective development. The learning outcome assessment is one of the most important elements to enhance and assure the quality of programs. In this paper, we present a “tour” of how an assessment cycle is performed in a national/public university in Qatar. The study draws on “good” practices and how a higher education institution systemizes the process of assessing learning. The approach demonstrates how learning is connected to program objectives and the curriculum through a rational, logical, conceptual, consensual, and interpretable process. Employing specification tables known as curriculum and assessment plan matrices, with tools being assessments and rubrics, learning outcomes measures can be reached. The approach as well as system calls for an institutional structure and organization which place responsibilities on all stakeholders involved in academic programs delivery. The futuristic approach and practice posit a reconceptualization of how students will be assessed, more likely a paradigm shift necessitating a change in practice and trend in which students’ success (achievement) can be based on the learning outcomes attained.
2010
This case study examined the intersection of collegiate-level student learning outcomes assessment with regional accreditation to understand how regional accreditation policies and practices leverage student learning outcomes efforts on US college campuses. To that end, the standards of each of the regional accreditation agencies were carefully reviewed and representatives from the regional accreditation agencies (with the exception of NWCCU) were interviewed. In addition, data was gathered from a Council for Regional Accreditation Commissions (C-RAC) and National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) Symposium on student learning outcomes assessment, in October 2009. The information gathered from the documents, interviews, and the symposium were reviewed and analyzed for emergent themes. These themes reveal similarities and differences between the accreditors, primarily in their stated expectations for defining, assessing, and using outcomes; for prescribing practices;...
Beyond Assessment: Assuring Student Learning in Higher Education
Setting up an 'Assurance of Learning' (AoL) system in line with requirements for accreditation is generally perceived to be a challenging task in both theory and practice. This paper provides an overview of the AoL system developed by the Faculty of Commerce and Administration to meet the requirements for accreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), and describes its rationale, results achieved to date, and current challenges. The Faculty's system draws on the use of graduate attributes , constructive alignment , quality systems and Theory of Constraints (Goldratt, 1994). In particular, individual student assessment is used to provide programme-level assurance of learning of graduate attributes. AoL's focus on 'closing the loop'using student cohort performance data to inform system level change so that more students achieve the overall programme-level learning goalsis illustrated through a number of examples. While AoL developments have been led largely by business schools, we argue that wider adoption would allow universities to back up their claims about their students' achievement of graduate attributes, moving towards assuring, not just assessing, student learning.
Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education: Review of literature
2021
Globally, assessment is considered as indispensable component of all educational levels and its significance has been acknowledged. While the definition of assessment is bewildering, generally assessment is the systematic collection, review, and use of information about educational programs undertaken for the purpose of improving learning and development. Enhancement of students learning is the final destination of any approaches of assessment either formative assessment that is known as assessment for learning or summative assessment that is considered as assessment of learning discussed in this article. Hitherto, the traditional way of assessing students is regarded as highly judgmental with limited or no provision of feedback to students. The overall criticisms of traditional assessment that confined on attainment of certain knowledge and skills is believed to be insufficient for the current dynamic era. Accordingly, call for paradigm shift to more wide and meaningful way of asse...
Student Learning Outcomes: Effectively Satisfying Multiple Accreditation Requirements
2014 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Cornell University. He authored over 70 papers, including several on accreditation and engineering education, and his groundwater research has been funded by five different federal and state agencies, including an NSF investigation of ocean-bottom geothermal vents in the Alvin Submarine. As a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers he organized an International Groundwater Symposium and was an associate editor of the Hydraulics Journal. He was lead author of the 2001 Civil Engineering Self-Study report submitted to ABET, coordinated the 2007 accreditation/re-accreditation of 10 engineering programs as Associate Dean of Engineering & Applied Science, and as Deputy Provost for Academic Affairs had lead responsibility for submission of the 2013 university accreditation report to the Middle States Council on Higher Education, chairing several committees including Enhancing Graduate Education and Assessment of Student Learning.
Center For Studies in Higher Education, 2012
The search for the Holy Grail to measure learning gains started in the US, but the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) wants to take it global. Here we tell a bit of this story and raise serious questions regarding the validity of the Collegiate Learning Assessment test and suggest there are alternatives. The merit of the CLA as a true assessment of learning outcomes is, we dare say, debatable. In part, the arrival and success of the CLA is a story of markets. In essence, it is a successfully marketed product that is fulfilling a growing demand with few recognized competitors. As a result, the CLA is winning the "learning outcomes race," essentially becoming the "gold standard" in the US. We worry that the CLA's early market success is potentially thwarting the development of other valuable and more nuanced alternatives-whether it be other types of standardized tests that attest to measuring the learning curve of students, or other approaches such as student portfolios, contextually designed surveys on the student experience, and alumni feedback. In a new study published in the journal Higher Education, we examine the relative merits of student experience surveys in gauging learning outcomes by analyzing results from the data from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Survey. This essay discusses some of the main points from that article. There are real problems with student self-assessments. But as we argue here, universities can probably learn more about learning outcomes in a wide range of disciplines via properly designed census surveys than by standardized tests like the CLA. At present, we suggest there is tension between the accountability desires of governments and the needs of individual universities who must focus on institutional self-improvement. One might hope that they would be synonymous. But how to make ministries and other policymakers more fully understand the perils of a silver bullet test tool? It's a clarion call. Ministries of education along with critics of higher education institutions want real proof of student "learning outcomes" that can help justify large national investments in their colleges and universities. How else to construct accountability regimes with real teeth? But where to find the one-size-fits-all test? In the US, there is a vehicle that claims it can do this-the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) test. In its present form, the CLA is given to a relatively small sample group of students within an institution to supposedly "assess their abilities to think critically, reason analytically, solve problems and communicate clearly and cogently." The aggregated and statistically derived results are then used as a means to judge the institution's overall added value. In the words of the CLA's creators, the resulting data can then "assist faculty, department chairs, school administrators and others interested in programmatic change to improve teaching and learning, particularly with respect to strengthening higher order skills." But can it really do this? The merit of the CLA as a true assessment of learning outcomes is, we dare say, debatable. In part, the arrival and success of the CLA is a story of markets. In essence, it is a successfully marketed product that is fulfilling a growing demand with few