Assessment Terminology
Missions Statement for AES Units
Outcomes Oriented Administrative Objectives
Administrative & Educational Support (AES) Units
Administrative units provide services which maintain the institution and are essential to its operations, but do not impact directly the instructional programs. Examples of such units include the Accounting Office, the Office of the Registrar, Physical Plant, etc. Educational support units are those while not primarily instructional in nature, contribute directly to student learning or instruction. Examples include the First Year Experience and Academic Advising Center, Library, The Learning Center and Information Technology.
Attitudinal Assessment
Satisfaction/opinion surveys are the most common type of assessment activities for AES units but may not be used as the primary means of assessment for the educational outcomes of instructional programs.
Assessment
A process that asks important questions about student learning, gathers some meaningful information about these questions and uses the information for academic improvement. (Assessment Essentials, Banta, 1999)
Backtracking
The tendency to first identify means of assessment and then "back track" to administrative objectives or educational outcomes. This "quick and dirty" means for completing an assessment plan often yields information which is not useful for program improvement.
Closing the Loop
The demonstration of the use of assessment results to improve the educational or service program.
Criteria for Program Success
The benchmark that the department sets and against which the program's performance is judged by the faculty within the department. These criteria are most often stated in terms of percentages, percentiles, averages, or another quantitative measure. For AES units this means identifying a reasonable level of service improvement to expect given the resources and personnel the unit has available
Direct Measures
A means of assessment for AES units consisting of a simple count of unit activities. The use of direct measures often requires the unit to already have available the data from a previous assessment period with which to compare current or future assessment results.
Documentation
"If it isn't written down, it didn't happen."
External Evaluation
Reports rendered by external evaluators regarding the operations of AES units.
Institutional Effectiveness
The extent to which an institution achieves its mission and goals
Institutional Mission
A broad statement of institutional philosophy, role, scope, etc.
Institutional Goals
Institutional-level action statements that implement, support, and are derived from the mission
Intended (Student) Educational Outcome
Describes what the departmental faculty intend for a student to be able to think (attitudinal), know (cognitive), or do (behavioral) when they've completed a given educational program. This is "results-oriented" vs. "process-oriented" which focuses on what faculty intend to do (adding a major, reducing teaching loads, raising salaries, etc.).
Means of Assessment and Criteria for Success
The "when," "how," and "how well" of assessment activities. When will assessment activities take place? Where will the unit find information that will reflect accomplishment of its objective? How will the assessment be accomplished? How well should the unit perform on the means of assessment identified, if the unit is functioning the way it should?
Mission Statement for Administrative and Educational Support (AES) Units
Describes the unit's purpose and serves as the intermediary linkage between the institutional mission statement and the more specific administrative objectives of the AES unit.
Objectives for Administrative (AES) Units
Statements which describe how well the AES unit intends to function or improve its services. They support the Unit Mission Statement and are the linkage to the means of assessment. Depending on the purpose of the unit, they may be all "process-oriented" or mixed with "results-oriented" intended (student) educational outcomes.
Outcome Oriented Administrative Objectives
Knowledge or skills (outcomes) gained by students from services provided by educational support units (AES). To validate these it is necessary to measure the students' ability after the provision of these services.
Point-of-Contact Survey
Survey distributed and collected by AES units at the time the student receives the service. The purpose of the survey is to ascertain in greater depth or detail the satisfaction of the student with particular aspects of the services provided.
Quantitative Means of Assessment
Those evaluations characterized by identification of individual components and provision of quantitative scores (cognitive, behavioral change, attitudes, etc.).
Qualitative Means of Assessment
Those evaluations in which a holistic judgment concerning the student is made (portfolio reviews, public performances, oral examinations, etc.)