Academic Assessment Standards

Academic Assessment Standards

Academic Assessment Standards

Annual Reporting

All undergraduate and master’s-level graduate programs submit annual assessment reports. All assessment reports are submitted using the prescribed assessment framework. All reports are submitted using TracDat.

Frequency

  • At least one outcome from each student learning goal is directly assessed each year.
  • Every outcome is assessed at least once every five years.
  • There is no standard for percent of outcomes assessed indirectly, but using multiple types of assessment can provide a deeper understanding of student learning issues.

Program Goals

Each academic program has a set of goals that describe the knowledge, competencies, and attributes that graduates of the program will have and apply to their professions. Typically, each program has three to six program goals, though there could be good reasons to have more. Program goals are not directly measureable. 

Since program goals are the fundamental goals of the academic program, they change very little over time

Student Learning Goals

Most program goals have at least two student learning goals. Student learning goals describe the knowledge, competencies, and attributes that students will develop through active participation in the academic program. Student learning goals are not directly measureable. 

Since student learning goals are the fundamental learning goals of the academic program, they change very little over time.

Student Learning Outcomes

Each student learning goal has at least two student learning outcomes. The learning outcomes describe observable student behaviors and are narrow and specific enough that they can be measured. The reason each learning goal has more than one student learning outcome is that the set of outcomes together act as a proxy measure for a student learning goal that is by definition too general, and possibly too abstract, to be measured directly. 

Each learning goal’s collection of learning outcomes should be comprehensive enough that students’ performance on the outcomes is a reliable proxy measure of their attainment of the corresponding student learning goal. 

Student learning outcomes typically change little over time, though there could be good reason to update outcomes. For instance, if the curriculum changes or innovations affect the field, it would be appropriate to change some of the outcomes.

Things to Avoid

Imprecise measure

A grade in a course (or even the grade on an assignment) is not a precise enough measure of a students’ skills to accurately assess a learning outcome, unless students’ grades were calculated exclusively on their ability to complete the outcome. That is almost never the case, and when it is the case, it is highly likely that the outcome is too broad.

Participation as measure

Participation alone is not a measure of student learning. For example, participation in faculty supervised research alone does not measure the extent to which students worked “cooperatively to solve a scientific question.” While requiring students to participate in faculty-supervised research is likely to be an enriching experience, the ways the experience benefits the students’ knowledge or skills isn’t measured by the fact of their participation.

Inadequate measure of outcome and/or target

There is only a tangential or partial relationship between the observed quality and the target and/or the outcome. The lack of a clear relationship means that any claim of meeting the target or fulfilling the outcome is not substantiated.

No measure of quality

The extent of student learning is not assessed. For example, the outcome may be, “Students analyze a real-world problem.” So it is reasonable to ask, “How well did students analyze a real-world problem?” An inadequate answer might be, “All students who graduated this year put theory into practice by analyzing a real-world problem.” In this example, the response given does not answer the "How well" question implied by the student learning outcome and no evidence of quality is offered.

Measuring requirements as outcomes

If all students are required to do something, saying that 100% of students did that thing is not a measure of quality.

Assessing the same outcomes every year (without measuring others)

Learning outcomes collectively serve as measurable proxies for a learning goal. Aspects of that goal may be missed if the same outcomes are measured each year.

All targets consistently achieved

If students are consistently achieving all targets, either raise the targets or use a different method of measuring success.

Targets either not set or observed quality not reported correctly

No target values were set or the observed quality does not answer whether the target was met.