Academic Achievement Assessment Committee
Final Report for 2000 - 2001
September 2001

Purpose: This report describes the composition, activities, and progress of the University of Wisconsin - Parkside's Academic Achievement Assessment Committee (AAAC) for 2000-2001.

The AAAC's formal charge is to develop and monitor procedures for the assessment of a variety of student learning outcomes or skills/abilities based on the expectations and needs of a number of different stakeholders. Included are quantitative and verbal skills assessment as required by the UW System. Also included are the general education learning outcomes of effective written communication, effective oral communication, critical/analytical thinking, and ability to work effectively in teams. Finally, assessment within the majors, although the responsibility of departments, is monitored by the AAAC.

The AAAC was created by the UW - Parkside Faculty Senate in the spring of 1992 to implement and provide "…oversight of assessment of student learning . . . including

(1) ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of instruction in verbal andquantitative skills and in general education;

(2) making recommendations for improving these programs on the basisof the AAAC's evaluation;

(3) supporting other assessment activities on campus such as programreviews and surveys of alumni, graduating seniors, etc.;

(4) identifying and recommending to the Faculty Senate changes inongoing assessment programs, should the need arise."

In addition, the Faculty Senate provided the following charge:

"The assessment committee shall make recommendations for changes in instruction in verbal and quantitative skills and in general education. The recommendations shall be contained in an annual report provided each fall to department chairs, the Faculty Senate, the dean of each school, the Vice Chancellor, the Director of Advising, and the Director of Educational Support Services. (UWPF 4.23 (4))."

It is the AAAC's intent, in concurrence with the administration of the UW - Parkside, that the activities of this committee become one part of a variety of activities designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning within the university community. An addition to the assessment of student learning, these activities include program assessment, evaluation of teaching, merit review, and post-tenure review.

(Note that these activities are summarized in UW - Parkside's consolidated review calendar.)

Committee Members: Members of the AAAC during the 2000-2001 academic year were Larry Duetsch (Economics; Director of General Education Steering Committee); Pat Goldsmith (Sociology); Mary Lenard (English); Sue Norton (Business; AAAC Chair); Jane Pinnow (Mathematics); Jay Sounderpandian (Business); and Vera Kolb (Chemistry).

Overview of Assessment

The AAAC has developed and monitored/supervised a number of activities since its creation in 1992. These activities are summarized in the assessment matrix available from the chair of AAAC. Each academic year, the committee focuses on one or more of these activities, which are intended to

(1) Assist with the identification and/or assessment of student learning outcomes at several levels, including General Education outcomes and outcomes in majors;

(2) Collect and report back to the UW System data on accountability indicators in the areas of quantitative and verbal skills;

(3) Report assessment findings and research on assessment to UW - Parkside faculty, staff, and students as well as to other important stakeholders;

(4) Provide feedback on assessment to UW - Parkside stakeholders for continuous improvement in the quality of the educational process.

For the 2000-2001 academic year, the AAAC's primary focus was assessment of student learning outcomes in majors. The AAAC also continued to work closely with the General Education Steering Committee (GESC) to review assessment of the General Education curriculum. In particular, the following activities were conducted during the 2000-2001 academic year:

(1) formal discussion with every department/program in the College of Arts and Sciences to review progress in continuous improvement via assessment of student learning outcomes;

(2) continuing review of General Education distribution courses;

(3) review of University Seminar as a mechanism for collecting baseline data on General Education learning outcomes.

The remainder of this report summarizes the results of these activities and presents agenda items for the 2001-2002 academic year.

Formal Discussion of Assessment in Arts and Sciences Majors/Programs: Between November 2000 and April 2001, the chair of the AAAC and the Dean of Arts and Sciences met with every department/program to discuss assessment and the extent to which the current assessment plan for the program/department is viable.

The overall cooperation and enthusiasm of departments/programs was commendable. In many meetings, all departmental/program faculty attended. In virtually all meetings, the majority of faculty were present. In no case did only the department chair attend. Clearly, departments have done an excellent job of communicating to faculty the importance of assessment of student learning. Almost invariably, faculty were familiar with both their department's plan and assessment efforts, and also were able to articulate the concepts and benefits of assessment.

Meetings were preceded by a short communiqué from the Dean, asking the department to consider such assessment-related issues as number of majors, methods of assessment, clarity of student learning outcomes, etc. Meetings generally lasted 45 to 60 minutes.

In one case (the HPEA department), the department admitted its first majors in the fall of 1999. Thus this department did not, for obvious reasons, participate in the training provided to department chairs in the spring of 1998 and currently does not have an assessment plan for the assessment of student learning outcomes within the major. The dean and the chair of AAAC briefly reviewed the basic concept of assessment of student learning outcomes and offered to provide support to the department in the development and implementation of an assessment plan.

In two departments (Economics and Criminal Justice), the department faculty are not satisfied with the student learning outcomes in their current plans. While faculty in those departments clearly understand the concepts and process of assessment (and the potential benefits), those present expressed some concern with the lack of specificity of their department's outcomes, which has made assessment of those outcomes somewhat challenging. Again, the AAAC will provide guidance and assistance as needed to help those two departments identify more specific, measurable learning outcomes.

To summarize the feedback from the remaining departments/programs

(1) Clearly, faculty demonstrate an understanding of the basic concept of assessment - what are our students supposed to be learning? What information or data do we gather and review to determine if that is happening? And finally, what do we do with the results of our review?

(2) Faculty generally have a very good sense of how ongoing assessment of student learning outcomes benefits the students, the program, and the faculty themselves.

(3) Faculty would greatly appreciate more support for their assessment efforts from the university. In many departments, for example, faculty would like to interact more extensively with alumni and would appreciate assistance with mailings, questionnaire development, focus groups, etc.

Continuing Review of General Education Distribution Courses

Review of University Seminar. Since 1996, all incoming freshman and all transfer students with fewer than 60 credit hours have been required to take the two-credit University Seminar. Because this course is required, and is almost always taken within the first academic year, it is potentially a good source for collecting baseline data on General Education skills such as writing, oral communication, and critical/analytical thinking. In approximately six sections, the AAAC chair worked with University Seminar instructors to collect data. In those six sections, students were required to use the internet to gather information about a controversial topic and then make a short presentation to their class explaining their position on that topic. Based on the data collected, students' presentation/communication skills were generally "acceptable," as was their ability to think critically about their topics.

Several problems were apparent in this exercise. One is that the ratings (either "poor," "acceptable," or "good") were somewhat arbitrary. Although there was great agreement across the AAAC chair's ratings and the instructor's ratings, the ratings themselves were probably based largely on norm-referencing (e.g., which students did relatively well or poorly in contrast to other students). Further, given that the presentations were, out of necessity, less than five minutes, it was difficult to assess performance in any real detail. An additional complication is that the university typically offers as many as 40 sections of University Seminar every semester, there is wide variation across sections/instructors in how the course is taught, what students are required to do, etc. While University Seminar may be a worthwhile mechanism for collecting baseline data on General Education skills, the approach used in this small-scale pilot study clearly is not viable.

Assessment Goals for 2001-2002

(1) The AAAC and the GESC will continue to explore ways to use the University Seminar course as a place to collect baseline data on General Education skills.

(2) The AAAC will continue to refine the draft of an assessment policy. When finalized, this will be printed in the student newspaper and the university catalog and posted on the university's web page.

(3) The AAAC and the GESC will continue to discuss the feasibility of a standardized syllabus. While individual instructors and departments should certainly have some flexibility, basic information about the student learning outcomes in a course and the assessment method(s) used would provide a great deal of vital information.

(4) The AAAC will work with the Testing Center and the Director of Institutional Research to identify an efficient way to collect information on verbal and quantitative skills as required, periodically, by the UW System.