The Assessment Process

Now that you’ve aligned the curriculum with goals, the next step in the assessment process is to collect the evidence – how will you know if the school’s learning goals have been met?  This process begins by first establishing standards.  For each objective, levels of acceptable performance must be established.  At a minimum, “acceptable” and “unacceptable” levels need to be determined for each learning objective.  More ambitious assessment efforts will include additional categories (e.g., "exceeds expectations") and/or will define acceptable competencies at two or more places in the curriculum.  (The Montana State, King’s College and Seton Hall examples all include illustrations of competencies defined year-by-year). 

There are two methodologies – rubrics and Primary Trait Analysis – that many find useful tools when establishing standards.   See the Tools page for information on these methods.

Once standards have been established, it is time to focus on the actual assessment of student learning.  Appropriate measures and methods must be chosen for each objective.  Some methods – for example, an assessment center exercise or a senior capstone project – may yield data to evaluate multiple learning objectives.  Seton Hall’s Senior Assessment panel, for example, generates data that can be used to measure critical thinking, change management, technological competency, and communication skills.  Other learning objectives may be relatively difficult to assess – for example,  leadership abilities or ethical decision making – and may require multiple measures for a single objective. 

There are two basic approaches to gathering data for assessment:  direct and indirect.  With the indirect approach, students, alumni and/or employers are asked to provide their opinions regarding the learning that takes place in the school’s programs.  The two popular techniques for collecting these impressions are surveys (students, alumni, employers), focus groups,  and exit interviews.  While these methods often yield useful information, indirect methods alone are no longer sufficient to assure student learning.  Within a few years, AACSB-accredited schools will be expected to have assessment programs in place that include some direct measures of student learning. 

Direct measures focus on observing (and assessing) student performance on the school’s learning objectives.  Assessment of oral communication, for example, will require that students demonstrate their skills in a speech or presentation.  There are many different direct assessment techniques – some take place in the classroom (course-embedded assessment), while others are part of the program’s graduation requirement.

• Examples of classroom assessment techniques include case analysis, oral, research and other written assignments, team exercises, items on an examination, and business simulations.  King’s College (see effective practices) emphasizes course embedded  assessment.  Please note, that course grades are not valid program assessment.  Course grades, while incorporating student performance on one or more program learning objectives, are too aggregate to give meaningful feedback on specific outcomes. Furthermore, assessment scholars raise the issue of a possible conflict of interest when asking professors to judge the learning that takes place within their classroom. Thus, student performance on a comprehensive uniform examination administered in a course may be appropriate to measure disciplinary knowledge, a grading distribution for the course will not. 
• Examples of more comprehensive performance assessment techniques that are not tied to a particular course include evaluation of student portfolios, capstone projects, and examinations (e.g., ETS field tests), as well as use of assessment centers.  Seton Hall provides good examples of effective use of comprehensive program assessment techniques. 

To meet AACSB requirements, assessment programs need to generate data that provide a basis to evaluate ALL of the program’s learning objectives.  While a carefully designed capstone project or an assessment center may be capable of this, most schools will find that they need to use multiple methods to generate the breadth of data that is needed.