Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes: What will students be able to know, do, and think when they

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Assessment of Student Learning OutcomesWhat
will students be able to know, do,and think when
they graduate?

• Presented by
• Horace D. (H.D.) Stearman, Ph.D.
• Director of Institutional Effectiveness

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Assessment Is Not Optional

• In response to increasing public demands for
  accountability in higher education, regional
  accreditors have set out explicit expectations
  for institutions to measure student achievement
  (assessment) and to use that information for
  improvement (institutional effectiveness)
• The Northwest Commission on Colleges and
  Universities prescribes in Standard 1.B of its
  Accreditation Handbook that the institution
  engages in ongoing planning to achieve its goals.
  It also evaluates how well, and in what ways, it
  is accomplishing its mission and goals and uses
  the results for broad-based, continuous planning
  and evaluation. Through its planning process, the
  institution asks questions, seeks answers,
  analyzes itself, and revises its goals, policies,
  procedures, and resource allocation.

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Assessment Is Continuous Quality Improvement

• It is a formative evaluation process
• It is continuous
• It is focused on improvement of student learning

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Levels of Assessment

• Classroom AssessmentAssessment of individual
  students performance at the course level
• Course AssessmentAssessment of how well a course
  is contributing to student learning outcomes for
  the program
• Program AssessmentAssessment of how well an
  academic program is meeting its student learning
  outcomes
• Institutional AssessmentAssessment of
  campus-wide issues or programs

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Effective Program Assessment Should Answer These
Questions

• What are you trying to accomplish?
• How well are you doing it?
• Using the answers to the first two questions, how
  can you improve what youre doing?
• How can student learning be improved?

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Seven Steps to Successful Assessment

• 1) Define student learning outcomes
• 2) Create curriculum map
• 3) Develop relevant measures of learning
• 4) Conduct measures of learning
• 5) Analyze results
• 6) Determine actions for improvement
• 7) Follow-up to see if improvement occurs

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Design Assessment to Close the Loop

• Develop assessment plan and measures for future
  period(Plan)
• Collect data in current period and analyze to
  produce findings(Do)
• Use findings to determine what needs to be
  improved(Study)
• Make changes and measure the effects in a future
  period(Act)

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Cardinal Rules of Student Learning Outcomes

• A student learning outcome must contain a verb
  that describes an observable or identifiable
  action
• A student learning outcome must focus on the
  student as a performerWhat is the student
  expected to be able to know, do, or think?
• A student learning outcome does not use words
  like know, understand, value, appreciate, or
  learn because they dont lend themselves to
  objective measurement

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Concrete Outcome Verbs

• analyze, compute, classify, compare, contrast,
  define, direct, derive, designate, discuss,
  display, evaluate, identify, infer, integrate,
  interpret justify, list, organize, report,
  respond, solicit, state, synthesize, name

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Verbs from Levels of Blooms Taxonomy

• Remembering
• define, describe, list, reproduce, enumerate
• Understanding
• classify, explain, discuss, give example,
  summarize
• Applying
• determine, develop, compute, chart, utilize
• Analyzing
• correlate, diagram, distinguish, outline, infer
• Evaluating
• compare contrast, critique, justify, conclude
• Creating
• adapt, combine, compare, contrast, design,
  generate

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Creating Program Learning Outcomes

• Top-down Approach
• Start with phrases related to expectations
  communication, problem-solving, critical
  thinking/inquiry guided, entrepreneurship,
  ethics
• Construct program learning outcomes that depict
  your expectations related to these ideas.
• Bottom-up Approach
• Start with course objectives.
• Group related course objectives together.For
  each group of related course objectives,
  construct one or more program learning outcomes
  that depict your expectations related to this
  group.

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Our Charge from NWCCU On-Site TeamOctober 3, 2008

• The Committee recommends that Rocky Mountain
  University of Health Professions (RMUoHP)
  thoughtfully execute its newly developed
  strategic plan and assessment system with ongoing
  attention to provision of adequate resources to
  maintain and develop quality programs. (Standards
  1.B.2, 1.B.4, 1.B.5, 1.B.6, 1.B.7, 1.B.8, 1.B.9)