Cape Fear Community College

Developing Academic Program IE Assessment Plans for Instructional Programs

Developing an Institutional Effectiveness (IE) or Outcomes Assessment Plan for Academic Programs

 

 

 

 

 


The primary purpose of developing and implementing an institutional effectiveness (IE) or outcomes assessment plan for an academic program is to document the achievement of student learning outcomes and the continuous improvement of the program. 

 

Cape Fear Community College adopted an online planning system, Strategic Planning Online (SPOL), beginning with the 1999-2000 planning year. The primary purpose of this system is to eliminate paper and pencil and to provide unit managers an electronic tool for documenting continuous improvement and archiving plans from year to year.   

 

The major steps in developing an outcomes assessment (institutional effectiveness) plan in the SPOL system for your program are as follows:   

 

Step 1: State the Mission or Purpose of your academic program (referred to as a planning unit).

 

The Purpose Statement describes why the program exists.  A good source of information for developing the Purpose Statement is the description of your program that is published in the NCCCS curriculum standards and the college catalog.   The purpose statement serves as a direct link between the college mission statement and strategic goals and your more specific student learning outcomes.   

 

Here are two examples of program purpose statements (not to be considered models):

 

Autobody Repair

 

The autobody repair program prepares its graduates for entry-level employment in the automotive body and refinishing industry. The curriculum provides training in the use of equipment and materials of the autobody repair trade. The student studies the construction of the automobile body, and techniques of autobody repairing, rebuilding and refinishing. Graduates may find jobs with franchised, independent garages or they may become self-employed.

 

College Transfer (AA or AS)

 

The purpose of the college transfer program is to provide the first two years of the basic studies requirements for a baccalaureate degree and to prepare students for transfer to a four-year college or university.


Step 2: Write objectives / expected student outcomes for your program   

 

Student learning outcomes are specific statements describing what students should know (cognitive), think (attitudinal) or do (behavioral) when they have completed a program. Peter Ewell, a well-known national assessment expert and researcher, puts it this way:

 

“A student learning outcome...is…defined in terms of the particular levels of knowledge, skills and abilities that a student has attained at the end (or as a result) of his/her engagement in a particular set of collegiate experiences.”

 

Developing your program outcomes is the most important step in outcomes assessment planning.  Each academic program is expected to assess and document from three to five 5 expected student learning outcomes annually. The aim is to develop purposeful, substantive outcomes. Limiting the number of outcomes makes assessment more manageable.

 

Examples of types of student learning outcomes are: 

 

Cognitive:

 

Behavioral Change and Performance:

 

Attitudinal :

One way to select your Student Learning Outcomes:

 

A very good method for developing specific program outcomes is for the lead instructor and all other faculty teaching in the program to meet and prepare a  ‘long list’ of the skills, knowledge and attitudes that all graduates of that program are expected to achieve. Using this long list, faculty can select from 3 to 5 of the learning outcomes from the list each year to include in their annual assessment plan.     

 

Some good sources to review for developing the ‘long list’ of expected learning outcomes for your program’s graduates are:

 

 

Step 3: Establish “Procedures / Assessment Methods” for each learning outcome

 

After developing your expected student learning outcomes, ask yourself how you will collect evidence to prove students have the skills, knowledge and attitudes you have listed. Ask yourself what sources of information would provide you with data you need for determining student success? It is best to have more than one source of information to determine success. Remember not to use individual student grades as a method for measuring success but instead, you may use aggregate or group performance. Evaluations by an outside third party such as advisory committee members, a panel of faculty, criteria established by accreditation or licensing agencies or other experts in the field are all excellent procedures or assessment methods.

 

Here are a few examples of appropriate assessment methods that could be used for collecting data:

 

 

Step 4: Establish the “Criteria for Success”

 

The ‘Criteria for Success’ is very important because it will be the target or the level of achievement you will use to determine student success.

 

The faculty should collectively decide the ‘criteria for success’ or targets for achievement. In doing this, you should think about the level students “ought” to perform or the “ideal state” rather than a modest target that you know can be achieved and is ”safe” to assess. Using assessment data to improve a program is greatly diminished when the criteria for success is not set at the level students “ought” to be achieving.    

 

 Here are just a few examples of “success criteria” and ‘methods of assessment’ for illustration. The ‘success criteria’ is underlined and the “method of assessment’ (source of the data) is in bold. 

 

 

 

Step 5 – Identify Other “Units Impacted”

 

Very often you will need the assistance of another department to fully carry out your objective/outcome. It might be that several different departments will be called upon to help you with different tasks. In these instances, your objective/outcome is going to have an impact on the resources of another planning unit. You are asked to indicate which planning unit(s) your objective/outcome will impact so that the unit manager(s) can plan accordingly.

 

Step 6: Conduct Assessment Activities/Implement your Assessment Plan

 

Put your assessment plan into action and begin collecting data. Determine which activities are to be conducted at the college level (such as surveys) and those to be carried out by you or others in your program.  If you are using college surveys, check with the Research Office to be make sure the questions relate directly to your learning outcomes so you will get back useful information.  The Graduating Student Opinion Survey and the Currently Enrolled Student Survey are two surveys that might help you.

 

Step 7: Report and Analyze Your Assessment “Results”

 

The next step is to summarize and report your findings and what happened. How did your students do? Summarize the information and be sure what you report relates directly to your expected outcomes. Your summary should be complete enough to convince the reader that assessment took place.  File your more detailed documentation such as copies of surveys, skill check sheets, examples of student work, rubrics, etc. for reviewing progress over time and for future peer review accreditation visits.

 

Analyze your results. What did your results tell you? How did the students do compared to the level of achievement you expected?  Is further assessment needed? What changes, improvements or modifications will you make or have you already made that will help improve student performance, especially if achievement fell below the expected level? What future action should be taken?   

 

Step 8: “Close the Loop” by documenting the “Use of Results for the Improvement” of your program 

 

By the time you have progressed to this step, you will have evidence in hand about your program that is important to you. To have a process that is of value, your evidence should be put to good use. Remember, the purpose of assessment planning is to improve, inform, and to prove.

 

This step is called  “closing the loop” because it is the final step in the annual planning ‘cycle’ or “loop”. In this step you are documenting that continuous improvement is taking place in your program. This step is accomplished by reporting any action, change, or improvement made as a result of how well your students performed compared to what was expected of them. Here are a few examples of some typical changes or improvements one might see in an assessment plan:

 

 

Sometimes no action or changes are needed because all the students may have met or exceeded the expected level of achievement. If that were the case, you would report that no changes were needed.  You might want to take another look at your success criteria to make sure they were not set too low to guarantee success, set unrealistically high, or set just about right.  In all cases, something could be learned from the assessment.         

 

Step 9: Begin the Assessment Planning Cycle Again

 

At the close of the annual planning cycle, review the learning outcomes on your ‘long list’ and select others to assess during the next cycle. Depending on what happened in the previous cycle, there might be learning outcomes that need to be assessed again the following year.

 

 

 Please see the examples of academic program assessment plans in Appendix A for illustration.

 

 

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