Begin With the Bar Chart in Mind

Assessment atFitchburg State College

Misconceptions

• Fiction: Assessment focuses on the negative.• Fact: Assessment focuses on all pertinent

facts, but primarily on the positive.• Fiction: Assessment involves “telling stories

out of school” that may make units less competitive for funding and other resources.

• Fact: Assessment data can help build cases for more and better resources.

The basic question

• If you were telling the story of an academic unit (e.g., department, program, major) to someone outside that unit, what might count as evidence that completers are, for the most part, succeeding at what you hoped they would when they entered the unit?

People outside the unit

• Legislators• Accreditors• Outside evaluators and other colleagues• Prospective students• Current students• Parents and the general public• Grantors and other external funding sources

Types of evidence• Indirect

– Provider-side: books written, conferences attended, classes taught, grades awarded

– Consumer-side: surveys and other self-reports; (most) standardized tests

• Direct– Student learning “products,” e.g., papers, lab reports, art

exhibitions, play performances, etc., evaluated per transparent, credible standards.

– Employer/supervisor field reports• Direct is best

– Increasing attention to collecting and reporting it since “A Nation at Risk” in 1983.

Types of usable data

• Ambient– Survey results that might be disaggregated for

your unit (e.g., NSSE, alumni surveys); test score results (GRE, MCAT, etc.) that may reflect on success in your unit; etc.

• Unit-generated– Classroom-embedded assessment of student

assignments; course/departmental portfolios; departmental surveys, etc.

Assessment data

• Systematically collected and shaped to tell a particular story

• Always reflects “good news”– We’re doing great and here’s the proof, or– We haven’t been doing so great, but we spotted

the problem and here’s what we’re doing about it.• Identify the question(s) you need answered,

then design a system that answers the question(s) economically.

Objectives

• Must be observable to be measurable. – “Builds a ham radio in a laboratory situation using

only a spoon, a diamond, and a steel pipe” is NOT THE SAME AS “possesses the ability to build a ham radio … etc.”

• Should reflect application of disciplinary content knowledge.– If I pour a concrete walkway, I probably KNOW

how to do it. But I can “know” how to pour concrete without necessarily being able to do it.

Reporting assessment results

• Use assessment data.• Explore significant questions raised by your

data. (E.g., are freshman and sophomore Communication scores close because students were taking the same lower-division classes? Yes, in this example.)

• Redesign the system or add layers, as results dictate.

• Record and assess your actions.

Questions?