Course Overview
This course pulls together the many threads that add up to educational effectiveness: evaluating academic programs and curricula, assessing student learning outcomes, coping with accountability and performance reporting requirements, responding to the demands of both regional and disciplinary/vocational accreditation bodies. The course acquaints students with strategies and instruments for conducting outcomes studies of programs, students, and alumni alike. Assessment topics include studies of students' basic skills, general education, knowledge in the major, personal growth, and alumni outcomes.
Thus, the course is designed for higher education professionals who seek to a fuller understanding of Student Outcomes Assessment, Program Evaluation, and Institutional Effectiveness. The on-line experiences are aimed at applying the readings, obtaining hands-on experience in analyzing data, and developing reporting skills. Each lesson lists supplementary readings and web links where you can find additional information to explore the topic in greater depth.
HI ED 840 summarizes the best of what we know about assessing student outcomes. Outcomes assessment is a process that is easy to explain but hard to do it well. The needs of students and the areas of their learning vary highly among institutions and degree programs. Students are diverse and the dimensions of the learning processes in American Higher Education are extremely complex. Likewise, assessing student performance is complex and hence difficult to summarize. Moreover, before we travel into the real content of assessment, we need to place our journey within a context, and within an environment that is heavily shaping what we do. Thus, before we focus on evaluation academic programs and assessing student outcomes, we will examine accountability, accreditation, and performance reporting. In recent years, evidence of student outcomes has become one of the key indicators of institutional effectiveness, especially as it is viewed by accrediting associations and many state higher education governing boards.
Course Objectives
This course examines institutional effectiveness, accountability and accreditation, academic program evaluation, and student outcomes assessment. Curricular goals for students in HI ED 840:
This course pulls together the many threads that add up to educational effectiveness: evaluating academic programs and curricula, assessing student learning outcomes, coping with accountability and performance reporting requirements, responding to the demands of both regional and disciplinary/vocational accreditation bodies. The course acquaints students with strategies and instruments for conducting outcomes studies of programs, students, and alumni alike. Assessment topics include studies of students' basic skills, general education, knowledge in the major, personal growth, and alumni outcomes.
Thus, the course is designed for higher education professionals who seek to a fuller understanding of Student Outcomes Assessment, Program Evaluation, and Institutional Effectiveness. The on-line experiences are aimed at applying the readings, obtaining hands-on experience in analyzing data, and developing reporting skills. Each lesson lists supplementary readings and web links where you can find additional information to explore the topic in greater depth.
HI ED 840 summarizes the best of what we know about assessing student outcomes. Outcomes assessment is a process that is easy to explain but hard to do it well. The needs of students and the areas of their learning vary highly among institutions and degree programs. Students are diverse and the dimensions of the learning processes in American Higher Education are extremely complex. Likewise, assessing student performance is complex and hence difficult to summarize. Moreover, before we travel into the real content of assessment, we need to place our journey within a context, and within an environment that is heavily shaping what we do. Thus, before we focus on evaluation academic programs and assessing student outcomes, we will examine accountability, accreditation, and performance reporting. In recent years, evidence of student outcomes has become one of the key indicators of institutional effectiveness, especially as it is viewed by accrediting associations and many state higher education governing boards.
Course Objectives
This course examines institutional effectiveness, accountability and accreditation, academic program evaluation, and student outcomes assessment. Curricular goals for students in HI ED 840:
- to understand concepts, methodologies, research practices, instruments, and information systems that support campus evaluation and assessment activities;
- to discuss with others the challenges associated with planning and implementing assessment studies in different types of institutional settings;
- to design and conduct studies of student and alumni outcomes such as basic skills, general education, knowledge in the major, and personal growth;
- to analyze data, make PowerPoint presentations, and produce effective reports on selected assessment topics;
- To outline the contents of a campus assessment plan