Assessment News

This is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Vicki L. Wise and Ms. Mary Ann Barham entitled, “Assessment Matters--Moving Beyond Surveys” from the publication About Campus.

The August 16, 2011, Chronicle of Higher Education article ‘Want Data? Ask Students.  Again and  Again’ by Sara Lipka posits that in higher education we have a culture of oversurveying students and too often rely on surveys as our main, or only, way of assessing the impact of our programs and services on student satisfaction and learning. Because of this, students are experiencing survey fatigue, resulting in lower response rates and data of questionable validity. ... Students who choose to respond to a survey even though they are not motivated to engage in the survey process may respond in either socially desirable ways or quickly and without much thought. ...

What more can we do to respect our students’ voices and encourage their engagement in the assessment process, and to ultimately increase the credibility of our findings?

1. Consider other methods of data collection beyond surveys, and include qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.
2. Select a method that allows you to measure your goals and outcomes efficiently and accurately.
3. Include a combination of direct and indirect measures of student learning.
4. Regardless of assessment method used, ensure that students know their voices matter by providing incentives that are meaningful to them, such as early registration for classes or discounts on book purchases or meal plans.
5. Give students feedback about how the data are used and what changes have resulted from their responses.
6. Consider feedback as an integral part of the assessment process….

Even after identifying ways to expand your assessment repertoire, if you must survey students, consider some of these suggestions to respect students’ time and effort to maximize your data collection.

1. Collaborate with others in your efforts so that you do not survey the same students too often.
2. Again, if you find that surveys are the most effective way to assess programs, we recommend that you consider keeping surveys short and doing the assessment more often but with fewer questions.
3. Present surveys in modes that consider how students best like to interact and that foster student engagement: for example, consider posting scaled or open-ended questions on Facebook, Twitter, or blog sites...

The final suggestion we would put forth is to control, as much as possible, rogue data collection. When deciding which programs and services to measure, select those that address program goals, those related to longer interventions, those with a greater number of participants, and those that use greater resources....

Wise, V. L. and Barham, M. A. (2012), Assessment matters: Moving beyond surveys. About Campus, 17: 26–29. doi: 10.1002/abc.21077. Dr. Wise serves as coordinator of Assessment & Research at Portland State University.  Ms. Barham is currently the director of advising & career services at Portland State University.

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