Fall 1999 * Volume 2 * Number 1

EXTERNAL EVALUATOR TO REVIEW HOPE'S ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

One of the elements that characterize institutions with mature assessment programs is a program of regular self-evaluation of those assessment programs. Indeed, periodic review of the assessment program is considered one kind of "pattern of evidence" North Central Association consultant-evaluators frequently use when trying to determine if a college or university meets NCA standards for accreditation.

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ASSESSMENT IS RELATED TO QUALITY

Hope's assessment plan relates assessment to excellence.

• Assessment will focus on the term excellence in the college's mission statement. And the specific focus of the assessment program will be to determine what this term excellence means when we talk about student academic achievement. The assessment program will enable the college to look not only at the process of education but also at the product of education-its students-to see if what we produce can indeed be called excellent. The focus will be on outcomes -what is it that we expect Hope College students to know and to be able to do; and the emphasis will be on quality -what standards are to be met so that we can rightfully claim excellence not only for our students but also for the academic and non-academic programs we offer.

• Academic and non-academic departments will necessarily be setting standards by which students and programs will be measured. To the extent, then, that our students meet these standards will we be able to claim excellence.

ON-GOING ASSESSMENT IN GENERAL EDUCATION

We are now almost halfway through with the second year of the implementation of the new general education requirements. While part of assessment involves keeping track of numbers during registration to try and "predict" the correct number of sections, another component asks students to assess their classroom experience in terms of the course objectives. The document passed by the faculty in April 1996 not only contained a structure for the new general education program but also contained objectives for each component. Two of the components we have begun to assess in terms of course objectives are the First Year Seminars and the Cultural Heritage courses.

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RECOMMENDED READING ON ASSESSING GENERAL EDUCATION

Assessing General Education Outcomes for the Individual Student: Performance Assessment-as-Learning (Parts I & II)
Published by the Alverno College Institute, these volumes represent the efforts of 23 institutions in designing instruments to assess general education outcomes. To order go to http://www.alverno.edu/educators/educators.html of the Alverno College website.

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CONFERENCE OF INTEREST

AAHE will hold its annual conference on assessment will be held at Charlotte, North Carolina, June 14-18, 2000. The conference theme will be Rising Expectations, Can Assessment Deliver? The conference brings faculty, administrators, and even some students, together to discuss, in a variety of formats, issues regarding assessment. If interested, contact Richard Ray or Jon Huisken.

OTHER DEFINITIONS OF ASSESSMENT (FROM ASSESSMENT GURUS) WORTH CONSIDERING

Thomas A. Angelo, author with K. Patricia Cross, of Classroom Assessment Techniques, gives this definition of assessment:

Assessment is an ongoing process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations explicit and public; setting appropriate criteria and high standards for learning quality; systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence to determine how well performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance. When it is imbedded effectively within larger institutional systems, assessment can help us focus our collective attention, examine our assumptions, and create a shared academic culture dedicated to assuring and improving the quality of higher education (AAHE Bulletin, November, 1995)

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