Helpful Hints for Program Assessment (Institutional Effectiveness)

Access the results reporting template and new plan template for your program(s) online at: http://assessment.ucf.edu/

Once logged in, use the menu bar at the top of the page to get to your program information:

1. Select "Assessment Coordinator" in the Menu pull down options
2. Select the program and year (current results report or new plan) you wish to work on in the pull down menu for "Select Program/Unit"

When reporting results, simply move your cursor under each measure (near the "Results" line.  An "Edit" link will appear.  Move your cursor over the "Edit" link and a data entry window will appear.  This data entry window includes many familiar editing features (e.g., bold, underline, insert a table, etc.), which will allow you to enter data more easily and in appropriate formats.  Enter your results data and "save".

Writing Functional Outcomes and Measures: When revising your plan, please consider the following:

1. This is a FORMATIVE assessment process: the objective is to identify opportunities for quality improvement.
2. Undergraduate programs must include their Academic Learning Compact (ALC) target outcomes (they are already built into the plans in terms of established outcomes).  A minimum of 8 outcomes is required for ALCs alone.  Most of our undergraduate plans address all 12 FEAPs individually, and collectively these outcomes meet ALC requirements.
3. Graduate programs’ assessment plans must include at least 3 outcomes.
4. Focus on student learning outcomes in academic program assessment plans.
5. Emphasize direct measures (i.e., assessments of student performance).  Indirect measures (e.g., survey data) can be used in addition to direct measures to provide additional perspective on an outcome of interest.
6. Use quantitative measures.
7. Use measures that will provide useful (i.e., informative) data to support program quality improvement.  “Global” outcomes such as FTCE pass rates, portfolio completion rates, comprehensive examination pass rates, etc., often fail to provide useful information for program quality improvement (though measures of this type may be useful to undergraduate programs evaluating their performance on Academic Learning Compacts).  An effective strategy may be to identify specific areas of interest (e.g., specific indicators of interest for selected FEAPs) based on last year’s assessment results and other sources of information such as Florida Department of Education directives, advisory group recommendations, alumni and employer surveys, etc.  Once these specific areas of interest are determined, add measures to existing outcomes or add new outcomes and measures to collect “high resolution” data.  Your best source of information may well be selected course-based assessments that will provide more detailed information about your candidates’ performance regarding specific indicators for the FEAPs of particular interest.  EXAMPLE: One advanced program built its plan around three FEAPs: FEAP 1 (Assessment) based on survey data that suggested this was a student concern, FEAP 9 (Learning Environments) based on feedback from employer surveys and advisory groups, and FEAP 12 (Technology) based on emphasis from the Florida Department of Education.
8. Using course-based assessments also keeps the data needed under your control, so you don’t have to hunt for your data each fall during the assessment reporting cycle.  Just remember to collect the target assessment data throughout the year as needed.

Final Recommendation: Make your assessment plan work for your program:

1. Collect data that will be useful in supporting continuous program quality improvement.
2. Collect data of interest to program faculty.
3. Keep your plan meaningful, measurable, and manageable—the “3M” approach.
4. The objective of this assessment process is simply to use assessment data to inform curriculum & instruction.  We should be better at this than any other college or administrative unit at UCF—it’s part of our culture as educators!  Let’s model for our candidates what we expect them to do as educators.

Lance Tomei, Director for Assessment, Accreditation, and Data Management
College of Education
ltomei@mail.ucf.edu

For Additional Assistance

E-mail: oeas@mail.ucf.edu