Program Assessment

The Academic Affairs Assessment group provides leadership and centralized support to 91´«Ã½ in the assessment of student learning and program effectiveness. Through collaboration with campus partners, we facilitate best practices that lead to data-informed decision making to promote student success at 91´«Ã½.

  • Assessment is the systematic and routine gathering of evidence that provides essential information for continuous improvement.
  • Assessment at 91´«Ã½ is a broad-based activity that occurs at a number of levels across the university in both the curricular and co-curricular environments. Assessments are carried out at the course, program/unit, and institutional level using a variety of data collection methods. The common element to these assessment activities is that the findings from the data collection help inform change to improve student success at 91´«Ã½.
  • When applied to student learning, the assessment process measures the degree to which students are achieving the intended learning outcomes for a program. This allows programs to focus efforts on improving specific areas of the curriculum, thus continually enhancing the quality of the academic program.
  • Assessment identifies and supports the need for change. Assessment results provide evidence to support implementing programmatic changes and can determine the degree to which the change was successful.
  • Curricular and co-curricular program assessment focuses on what and how a program is contributing to students’ learning and development.
  • There are three fundamental purposes for learning outcomes assessment:
  1. Giving students the best possible education.
  2. Responsible stewardship of financial resources.
  3. Demonstrating accountability by sharing successes and efforts for evidence-based improvement.

The assessment team works in collaboration with partners from across 91´«Ã½ to support the Academic Review & Planning (ARP) process, student learning assessment, program effectiveness assessment, and other ad hoc assessment projects.

We offer the following support to campus partners:

  • Meet one-on-one to discuss assessment needs at the program level
  • Assist programs in developing a formal assessment plan and provide guidance and feedback throughout the assessment process
  • Consult on existing assessment proposals and projects
  • Identify existing resources and data that may be leveraged for future assessment projects
  • Support the collection and analyses of data for programmatic decision making
  • Develop and lead assessment workshops for programs and departments
  • Track program-level assessment efforts to provide evidence of student learning and program effectiveness for accreditation purposesÂ