Introduction

What is Assessment?
The focus is not on individual professors, individual classes, or individual students. Our goal is for departments to find out what students (as a whole) are learning in their major (as a whole).

Basic Steps

    1.  Develop and agree on clear learning goals for your program
    2.  Develop an assessment plan that matches those goals as closely as possible
    3.  Develop a plan such that it will give you results that will be useful
    4.  Develop a plan that will be practical to implement
    5. Use the results of your assessment plan

Discussion:
Considering your department’s assessment plan: What would you like to know about student learning in your department?

Step 1. Develop and agree on clear learning goals for your program

The key to developing a good assessment plan and keeping it lean is knowing what you want---
What do you want your students to learn?
What do you want to know about your students?
If your department has agreed on this, they will be able to make good decisions and leave out what isn’t necessary.
Only collect information that matches what you want to know.

Step 2. Develop an assessment plan that matches those goals as closely as possible

• Begin by assessing your five most important goals. Try to prioritize goals and focus your assessment efforts on the goals that are most critical for your majors to accomplish.

• If an assessment activity does not provide information about your goals, it is probably not necessary to continue that activity. (Handout: example of a matrix that matches assessment activities and goals.)

• You do not have to assess every student, assignment, or class. Students don’t need to have 20 papers in their portfolios. Emphasize quality over quantity of portfolio materials, performances, etc. Collect and analyze only what you need to make decisions about student learning outcomes.

What information should be collected?

Collect information that:

• You need
• You will use
• You don’t already have information about

• Maybe Good/Acceptable/Not Acceptable will tell you what you need to know instead of a 10-point scale (see the handout for an example)
• You don’t need to look over a term paper like you are going to give it a grade or write comments in the margin—just categorize it and move on
• If there are only three things you need to know about an assignment, don’t worry about the other things (E.G. Level of Writing/Use of references/Uses Critical Methods)

• Assessment should be an ongoing process, but you do not have to assess everything at the same time. Try to spread assessment activities out over the academic year and summer.

• Work as a team with your department, don’t have one person do all of the work.

• It may be useful to cooperate with other departments; faculty from other departments could facilitate focus groups, for example.

• Do as much as possible within the context of things that you are already doing/getting paid to do.

• If you are assessing portfolios, shape assignments (that you would give anyway) in appropriate classes to match what you need for portfolios.

• Consider incorporating assessment into:

• Assess a sample of student papers, performances, portfolios, etc., if possible. You do not have to review all assignments for assessment purposes even if you review them all to assign grades. Sample every third paper or sample students every other year, if appropriate.

• Borrow methods and instruments from other departments or other institutions.
• Saves time, you do not need to "recreate the wheel"
• You can find out how well it worked for the others; learn from others success and mistakes
• The Concordia assessment mini-symposium will be a good opportunity to hear what departments are doing (March 20, 4:00, location to be announced)
• The assessment newsletter has many links to assessment at other institutions

• Buy existing instruments, where appropriate, instead of creating them.
• Saves time
• May provide comparative information

• Make your instrument or assignment or sample as short as it can be and still provide the information that you want. The benefits include optimal use of student time, faculty time, and analysis time.
• Focus on your goals—don’t ask questions about unrelated things or collect information that won’t provide feedback about the goals
• On surveys, don’t ask several questions about the same thing
• Ask whether a focused two-page writing assignment might tell you what you need to know; if so, you don’t need a 10-page assignment

• Delegate assessment tasks when possible.
Support staff in your department
Student workers in some cases (e.g. data entry) where appropriate
Students for Independent Study (e.g. working with design of instruments or analysis of results)
where this matches what students are studying, if appropriate
 
• Use electronic media as much as possible
• Scantron and Perception software (No data entry of results is required, results are stored in a database.)
• Database and spreadsheet applications can greatly simplify the analysis of information.
• Electronic storage of portfolios, papers, etc.

• Use existing data whenever possible (Academic Profile, College Student Experiences Questionnaire, CAAP Critical Thinking Test, Incoming Student Survey, Teagle Survey, Alumni Survey, Student Involvement Survey, CIRP survey, Destination Survey, IPEDS Data, ELCA Data, the Registrar’s Office, etc.

• Take advantage of resources that are available on campus:
• Workshops/Discussion Sessions (see website for dates)
• Annual Assessment Symposium provides opportunities to hear what departments are doing to assess learning outcomes
• Mini-grants will be available for development and implementation of assessment plans
• Web page with links: http://www.cord.edu/dept/assessment/index.htm
• Consultation with Assessment Committee and/or Director of Assessment

Step 5. Use the results of your assessment plan

Examples of how assessment results have been used at Concordia:
 

Department	Assessment Method	Result	Action
Biology	Field Area Test (content test)	Students don’t know as much Immunology as national sample	Include Immunology in preferred characteristics of next faculty hire
Education	Surveys of Employers/supervisors of Concordia Graduates	Students need more preparation in: special needs students	Incorporate coursework in this area into requirements for major
PE Education	Survey of practicum supervisors	Students need more preparation in classroom management	Incorporate into courses
Spanish	Survey of graduates	Students report they need more preparation in speaking spanish	Incorporate more speaking into courses, and use oral proficiency test for assessment of seniors