|
|
||
| hope college > assessment |
|
HOPE COLLEGE'S UPDATED ASSESSMENT PLAN
Spring 2001 The Assessment Committee spent a significant amount of time during the 2000-2001 academic year working on an updated plan for the assessment of student academic achievement at Hope College. The plan was constructed with input from a variety of sources, including committee members, department chairs, various members of the Dean's Council, and the advice provided to us by Jack Rossmann. Some of you will remember Jack as the consultant from Manchester College that we brought to campus last year to evaluate our assessment program. This plan is a challenging one. One of the significant challenges it poses is to departments that have struggled to get their assessment programs started and to those who have not yet fully implemented assessment into the curricular planning process. As you can see in Appendix A, each academic program's assessment program has been categorized as either Level I, II, or III using the characteristics promulgated by Cecilia Lopez of the NCA Higher Learning Commission. These classifications were made only after consulting the department chairs and asking for their views on which set of descriptors most accurately described the assessment program in their departments. The final categorization was made by the Assessment Committee, but it usually matched the category in which most department chairs placed their departments. But before I do that, I'd like to share part of the results of a very energetic and valuable period of self-study pertaining to assessment that we engaged in during 1995. From both practical and philosophical standpoints, many truly valuable and helpful things resulted from this study. But the result I'd like to share with you is the set of statements that describe the department's mission, goals, and objectives. They tell what we're about, and they helped us to see more clearly how our curriculum was serving our mission, and how we might make it better. We are hopeful that every academic program will have a Level III assessment program by the end of the 2002-2003 academic year. This will be a difficult but achievable goal for many departments. The Assessment Committee stands ready to help those departments requiring assistance, and hopes that departments with Level I and II assessment programs will take advantage of the assistance the committee can offer.
THE UPDATED HOPE COLLEGE ASSESSMENT PLAN WHAT IS ASSESSMENT? Assessment is a tool for enhancing students' academic, social, and spiritual development at Hope College. It is also a tool for helping administrative units ensure that they are functioning effectively and efficiently. The first step in assessment is the clear articulation of the goals of a department, a program, or an administrative unit. Various indices are then selected to provide information about how well these goals are being met. The information is used to suggest programmatic, pedagogical, and curricular changes in order to enhance students' development. WHY DO ASSESSMENT? Assessment offers an opportunity for students, faculty, staff, and administrators to work together toward specified goals in a climate of inclusion, openness and trust. Assessment provides the information needed to ensure that all college programs are continually improving in their ability to meet their goals and carry out the mission of the college. WHO DOES ASSESSMENT? Assessment is best done by those students, faculty, staff, and administrators directly involved with the department, program, or administrative unit being assessed. Collectively, they will articulate their goals, design a plan for gathering information, evaluate their results, report their findings, and develop and implement programmatic improvements. The college will provide them with the resources they need to do their job well, including information about effective assessment programs, time to design and implement their plans, and adequate funds to cover reasonable expenses associated with assessment. HOW SHOULD ASSESSMENT BE DONE? Assessment should be an inclusive, cooperative effort involving students, faculty, staff, and administrators. Multiple methods, generally including both qualitative and quantitative measures, should be used because convergent findings are more trustworthy than isolated results. Assessment activities should be conducted in accordance with accepted ethical standards for treatment of participants, including maintaining confidentiality of an individual's data. Those who collect assessment information are responsible for its dissemination. We trust that they will share their findings in a spirit of cooperation with others at Hope College who have an interest in them. HOW WILL INFORMATION GAINED FROM ASSESSMENT BE USED? The focus of assessment must be the continual improvement of programs designed to foster students' academic, social, and spiritual development. Successful assessment plans enable us to understand what we are doing well and what we need to do better. Thus, we must be committed in advance to implement changes suggested by the results of assessment. Decisions about individual members of the Hope College community including students' progress toward graduation, faculty tenure and promotion decisions, or staff members' performance reviews-will continue to be made on the basis of individual performance evaluations, not on the basis of assessment results. THE SCOPE OF ASSESSMENT Since the purpose of assessment is to enhance students' academic, social and spiritual development, it follows that every academic and administrative unit dealing with students will develop assessment measures to determine what impact these departments and units have on student development. Every department and unit will undergo some type of assessment. For organizational purposes, assessment activity will be divided into five main areas: 1. the assessment of student achievement in the academic major; 2. the assessment of student achievement in the general education program; 3. the assessment of the impact of academic support programs on student development--the library, the academic support center, the Counseling Center, the Chaplain's Office, the Dean of Students Office, the Registrar's Office, the Health Service, etc.; 4. an assessment of alumni(ae) to determine what impact their Hope College education had on them with regard to preparation for graduate and professional school admission, preparation for entering the job market, development of leadership skills, and development of a value system, etc.; and 5. assessment of administrative units' effectiveness in carrying out their missions. Assessment, furthermore, must be put in the context of all concurrent evaluation systems-faculty, staff, departmental reviews, etc. The assessment program will provide the college with additional evidence of its effectiveness as an institution. The information generated through the evaluation of students' academic, social, and spiritual development will provide the college with a much richer and more complete picture of how it is meeting its institutional mission. THE METHODS OF ASSESSMENT The college will employ multiple methods in its assessment program. Both quantitative and qualitative measures will be used since convergent data are more trustworthy than isolated results. Academic departments and administrative units will be allowed to choose their own assessment instruments. The expertise of the personnel of the Frost Social Science Research Center will be available to those who wish to use it. We favor a model that relies as much as possible on direct measures of student learning. While an effective assessment program can and probably should be built on both direct and indirect measures of student learning, we encourage departments and programs to employ direct measures whenever possible so they will be able to state what their students know and can do. THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM Assessment and the College Governance Structure The Assessment Committee oversees the assessment program. This committee is duly constituted under the Academic Affairs Board. To ensure that assessment will be an ongoing process, the Assessment Committee, and therefore the assessment program, is incorporated into the regular college governance structure. The assessment program fits most logically under the Academic Affairs Board since student academic achievement is the focus of much of the effort of this program. Assessment issues, however, that deal with student's social and spiritual development are reported to the Campus Life Board, as well as the Academic Affairs Board. Assessment issues that deal with administrative units will be reported to the Administrative Affairs Board. Furthermore, the placement of the assessment program in the regular governance structure ensures that the program is accountable to the college community. Appointments to the Assessment Committee and the regular recording of the proceedings of the committee are made in accordance with the rules that apply to all boards and committees in the governance system. Assessment and the Assessment Committee Sixteen persons, representing the following academic divisions and administrative units, composed the Assessment Committee:
Two Students - (appointed by Student Congress) (Note: One of the eight faculty members will be a liaison appointed by the Academic Affairs Board. The Status Committee shall consult with the provost regarding appointment of the chair) The duties of the committee are as follows: 1. Educate the campus community about assessment and assessment issues. 2. Assist academic departments and administrative units in the construction of assessment plans and assessment instruments. 3. Preview assessment plans from academic departments and administrative units and give advice about these plans. 4. Provide academic departments and administrative units with advice and counsel about how to interpret and use assessment findings to make programmatic improvements. 5. Develop, in consultation with the academic departments, assessment instruments and projects to be used in the assessment of the outcomes of the general education program. 6. Monitor the assessment plan and recommend to the Academic Affairs Board changes and/or variations in the assessment plan. Assessment and the Review of Academic Departments Assessment has been institutionalized by making it a part of the ongoing review of academic departments. Academic departments are required to submit assessment reports as part of their annual departmental reports. These assessment reports must address the following: 1. Assessment activities and efforts for the past academic year 2. Findings from assessment activities 3. Curricular or programmatic changes based on the assessment findings 4. Assessment plans for the upcoming academic year TIMETABLE FOR THE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM Assessment in the Major The table in Appendix A categorizes the academic departments with respect to the status of their assessment programs as determined by the co-chairs of the assessment committee. Academic departments that have assessment programs categorized as "Level II" are expected to develop "Level III" assessment programs by the end of the 2001-2002 academic year. Assessment programs categorized as "Level I" are expected to improve to "Level III" by the end of the 2002-2003 academic year. Assessment of General Education The senior exit survey will be conducted in April, 2002 and every two years thereafter. The writing assessment project will continue through the fall 2001 semester and will be evaluated at that time. The quantitative literacy project will continue through the spring 2003 semester and will be evaluated at that time. Other "skills of learning" will be selected for assessment beginning in fall 2002. Assessment of at least some of the "habits of learning" will begin in fall, 2001. Assessment of Student Life Assessment of student life will take place according to the following schedule: 2000 - 2001 Identify and refine existing assessment practices in each of the areas reporting to the vice president for student development, including, but not limited to, residential life, counseling center, health services, food service, SAC, multicultural life, and the orientation program. January 2001 - August 2002 Develop and finalize goals and desired student outcomes for the student development division. August 2001 - May 2002 Select strategies and methods for assessing desired student outcomes. External review of student development assessment program in April, 2002 by an external evaluator. August 2002 and Beyond Implementation of specific assessment strategies after modification of assessment plan per external review recommendations. Assessment of Alumni(ae) Assessment of alumni will take place according to the following plan: 2001 - 2002 The alumni office will assist the assessment committee and the Frost Center in working with academic departments to help them develop surveys of former students intended to assess the achievement of long-term student outcomes. 2002 - 2003 The alumni office will assist the assessment committee and the Frost Center in coordinating the data collection for academic departments with Level I assessment plans. 2003 - 2004 The alumni office will assist the assessment committee and the Frost Center in coordinating the data collection for academic departments with Level II assessment plans. 2004 - 2005 The alumni office will assist the assessment committee and the Frost Center in coordinating the data collection for academic departments with Level III assessment plans. THE EVALUATION OF THE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM The quality of the assessment program itself will be evaluated periodically. The college is committed to an external review of the program by outside evaluators whose expertise lies in the area of quality assessment in higher education every five years. The assessment plan will be reviewed and updated at least every five years. |
||||||||||||||||||
