Academic Program Assessment

Each major and stand-alone minor is to submit an assessment progress report. Depending upon the developmental stage that they have reached in their assessment process, departments will report annually or every other year.

The following minimum standards should be met:

1.      The departmental assessment activities are expected to be a department wide, collaborative process.

2.      Departmental assessment activities including data collection, analysis and related discussion are expected to occur on an annual basis – even if the department is on a bi-annual reporting cycle.

3.      The unit has identified measurable expected student learning outcomes.

4.      Each student learning outcome should have an assessment measure that clearly can be used to extract information about student achievement related to the components in that student learning outcome.

a.       Unit must have a minimum of two assessment measures in place; one direct and one indirect.

b.      Measurement instruments may evaluate student achievement for more than one student learning outcome.

5.      Unit should report results for assessment measures, even if they are incomplete, or if a full set of data has yet to be collected.

6.      A careful selection of assessment of student learning from core courses should feed into program-level assessment.

7.      Unit gathers, analyzes, and interprets both direct and indirect measures of student learning.

8.      Unit makes a clear connection between assessment findings and how they interpret findings in relation to meeting stated student learning outcomes.

9.      Unit communicates assessment results to internal and external constituents (i.e. students, faculty, and the community).

10.  Unit describes changes or improvements that have been made based on assessment findings.

a.       Unit makes a clear connection between assessment findings and areas of potential improvement.

11.  Unit involves alumni, employers, and other external constituents in their assessment of curriculum and/or student learning.

Updated March, 2013