Outcomes Assessment
Outcomes Assessment is a natural process that faculty do on a regular basis. It should serve the faculty, the department and institution. It can be conducted effectively and efficiently. The ultimate goal is to provide data that is used to make informed decisions on future courses, programs, student services, and improve the student's experience, process and opportunity.
The End of Assessment is Action
The goal of assessment is information-based decision making. Assessment helps Mt. SAC determine how well we are achieving our goals and suggest steps for improvement. We conduct assessment for ourselves NOT just for compliance with accreditors. You don't need to collect data you don't use; it's much more important to collect a small amount of useful data than proliferate data to sit in Nuventive that now one looks at. Remember, you are not trying to achieve the perfect research design; you are trying to gather enough data to provide a reasonable basis for action. You are looking for something to work on.
Common Actions Resulting From Assessment
- Changes to curriculum, requirements, programmatic structures, or other aspects of student's course of study.
- Changes to the policies, funding, and planning that support learning.
- Faculty training and development.
- The gathering of additional information.
Closing the Loop
If we were to "close the loop" we would use assessment information to inform our actions AND, come back and examine how the actions improved student learning or student services . Closing the loop may lead to a new question, or new outcome to be assessed in the future. In Nuventive improve this is recorded in our "use of results" tab.
After you have collected the data and taken time to reflect and discuss what the data is showing you, you decide what to work on, you plan and improve. Then you come back collect data and compare it to previous data to see how well it worked.
