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Overview
The purpose of this statement is to provide broad guidelines for conducting program assessment at UHM and to ensure faculty governance of the process. Specifically, these guidelines (a) provide direction and boundaries for program assessment practices campus-‐wide, (b) adequately address the requirements of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (the accreditation agency), and (c) provide foundation for the work of the UHM Assessment Office. The purpose of program assessment is to help programs recognize ways in which they can improve, particularly in student learning. Program assessment results are not used to evaluate an individual student, faculty member, or staff member, and results by themselves are not used for high-stakes decisions such as program closure.
Policy Language
1. Program assessment defined
In this document, assessment refers to program assessment, which is different from individual course, student, and teacher evaluation. It builds on (a) the long history in higher education of grading student work by looking at student achievement across courses and by looking at cumulative learning in students; (b) the rich body of literature about program assessment and evaluation; and (c) research about effective teaching methods.
The Mānoa Assessment Committee has adopted the following definition of program assessment:
[Program] 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 [program] performance matches those expectations and standards; and using the resulting information to document, explain, and improve performance.
2. The purpose of program assessment is to help programs recognize ways in which they can improve, particularly in student learning
- Programs engage in a continuous improvement cycle.
- Assessment results are used to improve student learning and to improve programs.
- A program uses assessment results to make informed decisions while taking its resources, context, and other sources of evaluative information into consideration.
- Programs are encouraged to provide resources to faculty to conduct meaningful assessment.
- Programs can use assessment to communicate program standards, celebrate program successes, and identify resource needs.
3. Student learning outcomes help students
- Student learning outcomes enable students to understand better what they can expect to learn, what they are learning, and what they have learned at the course, program, and institutional levels.
- Student learning outcomes set forth the anticipated or achieved results. They can be demonstrated by such indicators as student knowledge, skills, performance, and attitudes.
- The alignment of course, program, and institutional student learning outcomes is a crucial part of a coherent, cohesive student learning experience.
4. Faculty govern all phases of program assessment
a. Program assessment is a faculty-‐initiated, -‐driven, and -‐supervised process.
i. The faculty in a program identify appropriate program student learning outcomes. Faculty determine student learning outcomes at all levels, and they communicate them to students. Professional accrediting agencies may shape some programs’ outcomes.
ii. The faculty in a program select or design instruments and methods to collect evidence of student learning, including, but not limited to, evidence of students’ overall levels of achievement. Programs determine which instruments and methods are used to assess their programs’ student learning outcomes. Instruments and methods will vary depending on the context. In regards to general education and institutional outcomes, faculty participate in selecting and developing instruments and methods.
iii. The faculty in a program collect evidence of student learning. In order to interpret and use assessment results, background information about students is often needed while ensuring that conscientious attention is given to the confidential use of collected evidence. Faculty ensure that all assessment reports maintain the confidentiality of the individuals involved. Programs secure the physical and electronic files that contain assessment data and destroy all personally identifiable information when the information is no longer needed.2
iv. The faculty in a program evaluate and interpret that evidence. Programs develop an improvement plan or a plan for the next cycle of assessment studies that is grounded in evidence-‐based discussions of student learning or concrete data.
v. The faculty in a program report and use results to guide program decision making and changes if needed. Programs decide the extent to which they will make raw data or overall, summarized assessment results available to non-‐faculty audiences.
vi. The faculty in a program make recommendations for resources necessary to enhance assessment efforts and outcomes.
b. Programs are encouraged to collaborate with faculty members of the Mānoa Assessment Committee and Assessment Office to improve their assessment practices.
5. Programs report on assessment efforts
- Programs submit assessment reports to the Assessment Office that are grounded in evidence-‐based discussions of student learning or concrete data. The reports describe their assessment process, improvement or assessment plan(s), use of results, and the impact of previous improvement plan(s). The Assessment Office summarizes the reports and makes the reports available in order to support UHM’s case for re-‐accreditation as required by WASC.
- Programs’ assessment reports become part of their departments’ program review self-‐ study documents.
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