Using Existing Methods

The following examples are ways in which to use existing academic practices for assessment of student learning outcomes.  They involve using an evaluative measure and taking apart the “pieces” in order to assess collective student learning on a particular goal.

Capstone Courses

Capstone courses lend themselves particularly well to assessment because they usually involve students’ producing some sort of final project.  As an example, let’s say the students’ final projects are the presentation of a modest research project.  If the presentations are graded in terms of the overall project, it’s quite possible that all students would do fairly well.  However, you probably have a list of criteria that you’re looking for in the project.  Capstone projects can be turned into assessment tools by isolating the individual criteria upon which you are evaluating the student.

1. Identify the elements you are looking for in the final project.  These could include such things as synthesis of existing research or the ability to construct a logical argument.
2. After the elements are identified, use them to construct a grading rubric. 
3. Use the rubric to evaluate the pieces individually.  (For example, the student might have achieved a rating of “excellent” in constructing a logical argument, but was only “adequate” or “poor” in synthesizing existing research.)
4. Use the rubric to identify patterns.  You might discover that most students can construct a logical argument but are fairly weak in synthesizing research.

After the pattern is discovered, you might begin asking questions about how students learn to synthesize research and where in the curriculum this is taught.  Any changes the department implements should be measured again, with the appropriate capstone course.  Compare the results of the two measurements to see if the changes were effective.

Multiple Choice Tests

Multiple choice tests can also be used as assessment tools because, again, individual pieces can be disaggregated to look for patterns.  Suppose one of the goals you have as a department is for students to learn the “ways of knowing” in the sciences.  One of those ways is the use of deductive reasoning and so you have five questions on your mid-term that require students to use deductive reasoning to arrive at the correct response.  Isolate those five questions and look for patterns in how students perform on them.  You might find that 70% of the students missed at least three of the five deductive reasoning questions.  As a result of that information, you might decide to address that deficiency over the remaining weeks of the course. 

On the final exam, you might imbed five questions that ask students to use deductive reasoning.  Again, isolate their responses and compare the results to the mid-term questions.