Introduction INTRODUCTIONIn June 1995, UW-Madison submitted to the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges a campus-wide assessment plan describing the myriad of college and school strategies for developing departmental outcomes assessment programming in all majors and general education. After two years of faculty discourse, refinement, and implementation, many departments have outcomes assessment programs in place and are beginning to incorporate assessment feedback into curricular planning. Other departments are in the early stages of assessment implementation and anticipate accumulating useful information and data during the 1997-98 academic year. When used effectively by departments, assessment can be a useful tool for assisting faculty in determining whether students are achieving the educational goals and objectives defined either by various departments for their majors or by the institution in the academic area of general education. Feedback generated from effective assessment planning often produces valuable information about curricular performance, learning processes, and services thereby allowing for program improvement. The purpose of this report is to identify some of the current assessment strategies and practices being implemented and successfully used by departments, schools and colleges, and the university to foster continuous programmatic improvements in academic majors and student learning throughout campus. This report will address the variety of departmental and institutional assessment initiatives adopted or used during the 1996-97 academic year and a number of the methods which will be employed by departments in the 1997-98 academic year. Particular attention is paid to the types of assessment instrumentation and methods being incorporated by departments in a variety of academic disciplines. The report also identifies important departmental planning lessons learned from ongoing assessment approaches and activities.
Examples of each of these department assessment strategies as well as school and college
programming initiatives have been drawn from school and college annual assessment reports
submitted in June, 1996. The actual school and college assessment reports are included in a
more comprehensive institutional version of this report and, therefore, the examples mentioned
in the following pages are not inclusive of all outcomes assessment practices taking place
throughout the institution.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison's Assessment Council (see Appendix A), the institution's advisory group on assessment, has taken the position that properly developed and implemented assessment of student learning in all majors can be a beneficial tool for academic programming. However, only through widespread faculty and departmental involvement can an institution as complex as ours devise effective and efficient program-based assessment processes. It is believed by the Assessment Council that academic departments are best able to determine the educational objectives and assessment instrumentation necessary to assure continued improvements of the programs leading to undergraduate and graduate majors. The University Assessment Council meets several times a year to discuss and support the progress of departments, schools, and colleges, as they incorporate assessment into curricular programming. Because assessment is still in its early stages, the Council's agenda has been devoted primarily to sharing positive and negative assessment planning initiatives emphasizing the different methods and techniques being employed throughout campus. To support this institution's commitment to effective assessment planning, the University Assessment Council has recommended the following six-step approach for assessing student learning in the major.
|