Assessing Student Learning: Introduction

1
Assessing Student LearningIntroduction

• LTC Learning Workshop
• Fall 2005

2
Benefits of Assessing Student Learning Outcomes

• Increased student awareness of their own learning
• Faculty self-assessment
• Context for course design and revision
• Map for curricular assessment and change
• Advising tool
• Program assessment and accreditation

3
Focus of Assessment

• Assessment procedures should be designed to
  determine what students are able to
• Know (cognitive)
• Think (attitudinal)
• Do (behavioral)
• as a result of the educational program

4
Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Differs
From. . .

• Program Review
• Student Evaluations of Teaching
• Individual Student Evaluation or Grades

5
Purpose of Assessment

• To obtain information that can be used by program
  faculty to answer the following questions
• Are our students learning what we think is
  important?
• Are they learning what they need to succeed in
  this field or profession?
• Are we improving in our ability to help students
  learn?
• Should our curriculum or teaching strategies be
  modified?
• Are there other techniques or additional
  resources that would help our students learn more
  effectively?
• Assessing Student Learning Outcomes
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2004

6
Uses of Assessment Results for Program
Improvement

• Changes in course content or design
• Changes in assignments or assignment sequence
• Revision of examination content and/or structure
• Changes in pedagogy
• Justification for past changes in course content,
  structure, or pedagogy
• Changes in relationships between faculty and
  students

7
Uses of Assessment Results for Program Improvement

• Facilitate discussion of curriculum and pedagogy
  at faculty meetings, committee meetings, and
  retreats
• Changes in advising process
• Development of new career services for students
• Refine current assessment instruments and
  practices
• Sharing assessment information with alumni and
  review boards

8
Steps in Establishing a Student Learning Outcomes
Assessment Plan

• Define student learning outcomes
• by course, program, or department
• State student learning outcomes in measurable
  terms
• Determine methods used to assess student learning
• Determine when and where assessment will take
  place
• Administer assessments
• Review results and make changes needed to improve
  student learning
• Repeat as indicated by assessment timetable

9
Analysis of grade distribution

• is designed to assess a broad range of student
  abilities
• Shapes student learning in positive and negative
  ways through feedback
• Involves students in the assessment process and
  develops students capacity to monitor their own
  performance
• Pays more attention to self-assessment as a
  result of concern for reflective and
  self-sustained learning

10
Analysis of grade distribution

• Assesses not only what student know but also what
  they can do
• Should reflect desired learning outcomes and have
  a beneficial effect on the learning process
• Should promote the search for meaning and
  understanding and self-directed, independent
  learning
• Should provide contextualized, complex
  challenges, not fragmented and static bits or
  tasks
• Catching Up with Practice Conceptual
  Frameworks for Assessment
• Metnkowski et al., 1991

11
Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing
Student Learning

• The assessment of student learning begins with
  educational values
• Assessment is most effective when it reflects an
  understanding that learning is multidimensional,
  integrated, and revealed in performance over time
• Assessment works best when the programs it seeks
  to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes
• Assessment requires attention to outcomes but
  also and equally to the experiences that lead to
  those outcomes

12
Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing
Student Learning

• Assessment works best when it is ongoing not
  episodic
• Assessment fosters wider improvement when
  representatives from across the educational
  community are involved
• Assessment makes a difference when it begins with
  issues of use and illuminates questions that
  people really care about
• Assessment is most likely to lead to improvement
  when it is part of a larger set of conditions
  that promote change

13
Nine Principles of Good Practice for Assessing
Student Learning

• Through assessment, educators meet
  responsibilities to students and to the public
• American Association for Higher Education