CHAPTER 7 ACADEMIC PROGRAMS AND CURRICULUM
SECTION 2: ASSESSMENT
(To see who has authority to approve changes to this section, please see the Approval of Changes page).
UWSP will assess student learning within both the General Education Program and the various department-level academic programs. The purpose of assessment is to ensure the continuous improvement of student learning by informing all choices related to the curricular and instructional changes, programs, and policies that contribute to student success. In this way, assessment is intended to provide the foundation for academic planning and decision making.
THE ASSESSMENT PLAN
The evaluation of student learning will move beyond the purely anecdotal and personal experiences of individual faculty or departments to study the undergraduate experience as a whole. In this way, assessment will provide information to use in decision making related to the continuous improvement of teaching and learning, department review, and other key institutional outcomes. Intentional coordination of efforts is the key to the assessment plan, with each effort centered on a model of continuous improvement with student learning as the focus. Program-level assessment will be carried out by academic departments that submit reports to the Assessment Subcommittee; the assessment of general education will be the responsibility of the General Education Committee; and institutional-level assessment (which will inform the work of both the Assessment Subcommittee and the General Education Committee) will be administered by the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness.
The assessment of undergraduate programs at UWSP will have four components:
1. an analysis of new student attributes and prior experiences;
2. an evaluation of learning within the general education curriculum
3. an evaluation of learning within department-level academic programs; and
4. institutional-level measures, including surveys of student perceptions and a value-added measurement of student learning from the freshman to senior years.
ANALYSIS OF NEW STUDENT ABILITIES
The knowledge, skills and perspectives outlined previously need to be analyzed first among our new students, primarily the incoming freshmen. The regent-mandated placement tests of verbal and quantitative skills already help place students in the most appropriate English, math and foreign language courses as well as identify students in need of remedial work. The placement test results are integrated as a second component of a freshman profile in the larger assessment program. Finally, an inventory administered to new freshmen helps identify our new students’ values and perspectives. These components help us understand freshman knowledge, skills and perspectives.
GENERAL EDUCATION ASSESSMENT
Assessment of the General Education curriculum is described in 7.6 of this Handbook.
DEPARTMENT-LEVEL PROGRAM ASSESSMENT
Each department has the responsibility to assess student learning within its undergraduate and graduate programs* and to analyze and use the results to modify the program outcomes or curriculum where necessary to ensure the continuous improvement of student learning.
*Here, “department” is defined to include departments, divisions, and schools depending on the college involved, or in some cases, interdisciplinary programs. In the case of the College of Natural Resources, “department” refers to the entire college excluding the Department of Paper Science and Chemical Engineering.
**And “programs” refers to curricula of study, e.g., majors, minors, certificates.
Departments shall determine the methods of assessment and the instruments to be used that best meet assessment needs. These must provide information that can be used to identify both curricular and instructional strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Oversight of department-level program assessment will be the responsibility of the Assessment Subcommittee, a permanent subcommittee of the Academic Affairs Committee (AAC). The role of the subcommittee will be to:
1. develop the policies and procedures for academic program assessment, addressing deficiencies in, and making improvements to, the assessment process.
2. provide feedback on program reports and identify areas of success and potential improvement;
3. develop, administer, and approve institutional level student learning assessment procedures and instruments consonant with UWSP’s Mission;
4. oversee compilation of program assessment data by the Assessment Coordinator for production of a dashboard for public access to assessment results and an annual assessment report;
5. in conjunction with the Assessment Coordinator, provide guidance and resources for programs as they update and review their assessment efforts;
6. in conjunction with the Assessment Coordinator, promote assessment of student learning through professional development.
The subcommittee will NOT
1. conduct department reviews;
2. evaluate departments or courses;
3. assess the worth of departments or programs on the basis of assessment data submitted.
The Department-Level Program Assessment Process
At this time, the majors in each department are the only programs to be reviewed by the Assessment Subcommittee (i.e., not minors and certificates).
Each department will keep on file with the Assessment Subcommittee a current five-year Assessment Plan for each major within the department denoting year-by-year how the department will gather and use assessment information. The plan should include the learning outcomes for the major; a curriculum map illustrating the progression of courses and experiences that allow students to achieve each program learning outcome, and how each of these courses contributes to student achievement of the aligned program learning outcome; and an explanation of the assessment techniques or strategies that will be used to evaluate student learning within the program as demonstrated by their level of achievement of program learning outcomes.
In addition, each department will be required to report to the Assessment Subcommittee on its evaluation of student learning and process improvement for (at least) one learning outcome (hereafter, focal learning outcome) for each program in each academic year. Each program learning outcome should be evaluated in turn before any learning outcomes are evaluated again, as part of a program-specific cycle. This reporting of assessment results is intended to be a collegial and formative process and will have the following steps:
1. The department will evaluate student learning in a written assessment report for each program using the format described below. (During years in which the entire department is under review, annual assessment reports will be summarized in the larger Program Self-Study Report. See UWSP Handbook, Chapter7.3.) The department must enter report components into the Program Assessment interface.
2. The Assessment Subcommittee will evaluate submissions using a detailed rubric, and provide the department with written feedback of its assessment report outlining the subcommittee’s conclusions and recommendations. This feedback will include the rubric used by the subcommittee in forming its opinions. This feedback will be delivered to the department for use in improving assessment, instruction, and curriculum.
An aggregated summary of assessment results across programs will be made publicly available through an online assessment dashboard. Assessment reports from individual programs are intended to be campus resources and will be available to anyone who requests them. The Assessment Coordinator is the curator of all department assessment reports, and the reports, along with the program assessment plans, will be maintained in the Common Council files.
Responses To Delinquent Assessment Reports
Because each department assessment report is intended to provide the foundation for decision making within the unit, it is important that the reports be completed in a timely fashion. When a department fails to complete its annual assessment report according to the program-specific cycle of the department’s five-year assessment plan, the provost may hold all staffing and budgeting decisions for the delinquent department in abeyance. Extenuating circumstances can relax this policy, at the discretion of the provost, if they are communicated by the dean to the provost and Assessment Coordinator.
Content of the Assessment Report
Each annual report should be entered into the Assessment Subcommittee interface by the first Friday in February of each year and have the following parts:
1. Program Learning Outcomes: List all program learning outcomes, specifically indicating the knowledge, skills, and dispositions students will develop. The focal program learning outcome being assessed should be indicated.
2. Current Curriculum Map: Include the program curriculum map illustrating the progression of courses or experiences that allow students to achieve each program learning outcomes, and how each of those courses or experiences contributes to student achievement of the aligned program learning outcomes.
3. Summary of Previous Results: If the focal learning outcome has been assessed previously, provide a brief (<250 words) abstract of those results.
4. Brief Description of Departmental Improvements and Changes as related to assessment: If the focal learning outcome has been assessed previously, describe specific action taken and changes that have been made (to curriculum, assessment methods, etc.), based on that previous assessment.
5. Current Assessment Strategies/Measures/Techniques/Methods: Include brief descriptions of assessment methods used in the program to assess student learning. Examples of assessment methods include exams, portfolios, pre- and post-¬ tests, direct observation of performance, surveys (current students, alumni, employers), focus groups, and national exams. A description of how the assessment aligns with the focal PLO should be present. A summary of how student achievement of learning outcomes was evaluated as exceeding, meeting, partially meeting, or not meeting program expectations for student performance should be included, as should supplementary materials like assessment instructions and rubrics.
6. The program’s benchmark for the proportion of students meeting or exceeding the criteria for focal PLO achievement should be provided, along with the program’s rationale for choosing this benchmark. This benchmark should reflect the program’s performance level upon which the program is attempting to improve. If the focal PLO has not been assessed previously, no benchmark is required. If a PLO has been previously assessed, the results from the most recent assessment should serve as the benchmark for the current assessment results.
7. Current Assessment Results/Findings/Interpretation: The report should summarize what was measured; describe specifically what the assessment results reveal about student learning in the context of the stated focal program learning outcome; and compare the current results to the benchmark. Useful details to include are whether there are any patterns in student performance relative to specific course sequences. The results should include only those students enrolled in the program under consideration.
8. Reflection on Assessment Process and Data: Reflect upon what your program can learn from the data collected about the platform for student achievement provided by the program, or about the chosen assessment instrument or method of data analysis. Describe how results will be used by the department to enhance student learning, including proposed changes to the curriculum, assessment techniques, and/or learning outcomes. If the benchmark was not met, analyze possible causes and solutions. If the benchmark was met or exceeded, analyze additional ways that your program could enhance and improve student learning.
9. Dissemination of Findings: Describe when the findings of the departmental assessment work were discussed and approved by the faculty, along with any other plans for dissemination.
10. An updated five-year assessment plan will accompany the annual assessment report. The plan should include details on when, where, and how in the upcoming five years each PLO will be assessed, and the year in which assessment data will be reported to the Assessment Subcommittee.