{"id":2252,"date":"2019-08-28T19:53:04","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T19:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/testassessment\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2020-05-07T18:27:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T18:27:44","slug":"using-multiple-assessment-strands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/assessment\/resources\/using-multiple-assessment-strands\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Multiple Assessment Strands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shidler College of Business<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

-800 declared undergraduate majors and 550 graduate students.
-12 academic degree programs plus executive programs and graduate certificates.
-Degrees awarded annually (average): 490 Bachelor, 160 Master, and 5 Doctorate.
-60 instructional faculty members.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Shidler College of Business offers twelve degree programs, graduates 200-300 students a semester, and is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), so when Ellen Vinson offered to be Shidler\u2019s college-level assessment coordinator, it was met with relief. \u201cI have been interested in assessment for a long time and kind of stepped in and just said, why don\u2019t I coordinate this for you because we needed to move forward with assessment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all of its degree programs, the college uses embedded assessment; however, each of the undergraduate majors \u201capproaches it a little differently,\u201d Ellen said. \u201cWe have a two-pronged approach: we have four goals that relate to the entire Bachelor\u2019s of Business Administration [BBA] because students have so many courses in common.\u201d In addition, each undergraduate major has its own fifth, distinct goal that the department may assess differently. \u201cOne department uses a pre-post test. The other departments assess their majors using a variety of assignments selected by faculty,\u201d Ellen said. The four BBA goals are assessed by faculty teaching required college courses using in-course (embedded) assessment. This same method is used for the College\u2019s MBA, MAcc, MFE and MHRM programs. Ellen\u2019s main role as a non-faculty assessment coordinator for Shidler involves collecting this assessment data from each faculty member and producing reports that the Assessment Committee reviews. \u201cI\u2019ll produce reports and they pour through the information and look at it carefully,\u201d Ellen said. \u201cThey\u2019ll make recommendations to the Curriculum and Programs Committee who can then act on the recommendations. Any recommendations for major curriculum changes must be voted on by our College\u2019s Faculty Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process ensures that program assessment at Shidler progresses to a stage where the information yielded is useful. After their first year of program assessment \u201cthe Assessment Committee and this Curriculum and Programs Committee (CPC) came to the same conclusion with our ethics goal,\u201d Ellen said. They realized \u201cit wasn\u2019t taught or assessed in one of our core courses so beginning next year, ethics will be addressed in a different course . . . That\u2019s the success for the first year: the faculty saw an issue and they\u2019ve made a change.\u201d Now Shidler\u2019s ethical component has been moved to a core course that students are required to take as part of their BBA degrees. To look for further inconsistencies across the many curricula, Ellen instigated curriculum mapping for the BBA degree program. \u201cI went to one of the workshops [the then Assessment Office] had done,\u201d Ellen noted. \u201cI took it to [the Department Chairs] and then they consulted with their faculty and brought [their curriculum maps] back to me.\u201d One of the benefits of curriculum mapping for Ellen was that it enabled her to help faculty understand that assessment is focused on the program and program improvement, and it is not used to evaluate individual faculty members. \u201cIt\u2019s not that the faculty member isn\u2019t doing his or her job,\u201d Ellen reminded. \u201cIt\u2019s that perhaps somewhere in the curriculum the preliminary material isn\u2019t being taught so students then aren\u2019t prepared for the other material,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellen also helped the faculty reword some of their student outcomes. \u201cI looked at some of the goals and they weren\u2019t necessarily measurable,\u201d she said. Building on her assessment background, Ellen worked with the Department Chairs \u201cto rephrase or to come up with a different language, not to change the meaning, but to come up with a different language for the goals . . . The faculty understood that the goals needed to be student-centered but the whole piece of it being measurable was a little bit of a challenge . . . It\u2019s a new language and that\u2019s all it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Shidler\u2019s accrediting body\u2014AACSB International\u2014does not recognize indirect assessment methods (e.g., surveys, student self-reports) in their review of the College, Ellen sees the intrinsic value of getting student feedback. \u201cI do exit surveys for all the programs,\u201d she said. Ellen\u2019s surveys challenge students to rate how the Shidler College curriculum contributed to the undergraduate program goals, as well as to rate the quality of instruction and the curriculum. \u201cIt\u2019s just another piece of information that our Assessment Committee can use,\u201d Ellen concluded. The multiple types of information that Shidler collects allow the college to form a more complete picture of student learning, preparation, and satisfaction, which it uses to guide curriculum decision making and to convey to outsiders the high quality of the College and its programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While assessment in the Shidler College of Business is an important part Ellen Vinson’s job, it is also a team effort. \u201cThe first year I worked with assessment at Shidler, there wasn\u2019t an Assessment Committee. This year I was able to identify people who saw the value of a faculty assessment committee,\u201d she said, adding that it was essential to promote assessment \u201cin language that made it important to those involved.\u201d In the regularly scheduled assessment meetings she has seen a growing interest among faculty. \u201cI think they\u2019re beginning to invest a little bit in [program assessment] and to perhaps see some value.\u201d Shidler\u2019s Assessment Committee is even considering increasing the percentage of students assessed. \u201cAASCB requires us to do assessment for 20%,\u201d Ellen said. \u201cThe assessment committee is considering changing that, having a recommendation that we assess 100% of the students,\u201d demonstrating that program assessment in the Shidler College of Business is not only working, it is also growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Keys to Success<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n