Program Assessment Process

Think of assessment like a research project with the following research question and program faculty as your main audience:

How well do students in our program learn and demonstrate our program’s learning goals?

With this question in mind, carry out the rest of your research process:  develop measures, collect evidence, communicate your findings, evaluate the meaning of your findings and implement steps for improvement.

• Clearly define program learning goals. Identify one or two goals to assess in a given semester or year.
• Select appropriate assessment measures with which to assess students’ mastery of the learning goal. (Assessment Best Practices and Instruments) 
• Collect evidence: measure students’ performance on course assignments aligned with the learning goal.
• Analyze the results, noting strengths and weaknesses.
• Adjust or improve program in accordance with your interpretation of the findings. (Closing the Loop)