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Assessment Plan
In 2005 the Vice President of Student Affairs partnered with the Office of Institutional
Research (Academic Affairs) to launch the division’s comprehensive, outcomes-based
assessment program. From the first year on, the assessment efforts were embraced
(with a little nudging from the Vice President) by each of the division's twenty
or so directors. The expectation then, as it is now, was that each director, in
conjunction with his or her staff, would identify several program objectives and
learning outcomes to be tracked, measured, and reported on during the course of
the year. Six years later, assessment efforts have become an integral part of the
"every-day" work of managers and staff within the division.
The division’s movement to make assessment commonplace was fueled by several catalysts.
Some of these included: the public posting of reports-in-progress and outcomes achieved
on the division’s main webpage; commenting on assessment activities as part of the
directors’ annual evaluation; dedicating one or more directors’ meetings and/or
retreats to assessment strategies each semester; identifying on- and off-campus
assessment "consultants" to assist with outcomes formulation and instruments design;
and utilizing of a consistent reporting template to organize the annual assessment activities.
Importantly, the current assessment program reflects the division’s success in moving,
to a large extent, from a program-improvement/student-satisfaction-based initiative
to a student-learning-based one. As mentioned above, each department within Student
Affairs has been expected, for the last several years, to formulate 3-4 student
learning outcomes or program objectives related to departmental mission, goals,
and divisional priorities. At least one of those outcomes must be a "student-learning"
oriented one with measurable outcomes associated with it.
In the early stages of assessment, directors formulated student learning outcomes
that relied on “self-reported” or other indirect measures (i.e., asking students
to report, in their own opinion, whether their knowledge had increased by participating
in program X or workshop Y). These self-reported (indirect) measures did not capture
or verify what participants actually learned by participating in the event. Now,
as the Division has become increasingly proficient and well-versed in institutional
assessment processes, its SLOs have evolved accordingly. Today, many of the student
learning outcomes departments assess are sophisticated and directly measured (i.e.,
through rubric-scored essays and portfolios of student work; direct observation
as students demonstrate, via role-plays, etc., skills they have gained; pre-/post-test
comparisons). In other words, many of the SLOs departments now formulate can better
show the extent to which students’ attitudes (even behaviors) have changed. These
more recent SLOs can also “get to” the “added value” the programs gave to those
who participated. This reflects an important shift: early on, it was the call to
assess that drove the assessments; now, however, it is the determination and improvement
of what students actually learn that drives the assessment.
Each department’s assessment plan includes six components: mission statement, planning
goals, program objectives or student learning outcomes, methods and measures, findings,
and conclusions/status.
To ensure that all directors are "speaking the same language," Student Affairs managers
at Sacramento State rely on the following definitions to shape their work.
- The Departmental Mission must be directly aligned with those of the University
and the Division. This statement should include approximately 3-5 sentences that
identify the name of the department, its primary functions, modes of delivery and
target audience.
- The Planning Goals are broad statements that describe the overarching long-range
intentions of an administrative unit. Goals are used primarily for general planning,
as the starting point for the development and refinement of program objectives or
student learning outcomes.
- The Objectives or Outcomes can be one of two types: program objectives or
student learning outcomes. The former are related to program improvement around
issues like timeliness, efficiency and participant satisfaction. The latter addresses
what a student learns or how a student changes by participating in the program or
utilizes the service. Both program objectives and student learning outcomes are
measurable statements that provide evidence regarding the degree to which the unit
is reaching its goals.
- Methods and Measures clearly but briefly describe several things: the assessment
instrument being used; the population being studied and the conditions under which
they are being studied; the timeframe of the assessment; any benchmarks against
which to measure change, behavior modification, or learning.
- Findings are the actual data that is gathered though the assessment tool
employed (i.e. pre-/post-test scores, rubric scores, workload estimates, the number
of students served by a particular program). After presenting the data, the finding
section describes clearly and concisely the degree to which the program objective
or student learning outcome was met.
- Conclusions/Status, sometimes called “closing the loop,” consist of a brief
narrative identifying what decisions and/or program modifications will be made on
the basis of the assessment outcomes. The conclusion tells the story: “here is where
we started, here is what really happened, here is what we learned, and here is what
we will do next.” If the current measures are part of an ongoing, long-term assessment
project, the status of the project should be described here.
Our current assessment report for year 2010-11 can be view in an interactive magazine
format or in PDF.
Archived Assessment Reports
You may download the Division's 2006-07 year end assessment report by using either
of these links:
-
2006-2007 Assessment Plan (Word)
-
2006-2007 Assessment Plan (PDF)
You may download the Division's 2007-08 year end assessment report by using either
of these links:
-
2007-2008 Assessment Plan (Word)
-
2007-2008 Assessment Plan (PDF)
You may download the Division's 2008-09 year end assessment report by using either
of these links:
-
2008-2009 Assessment Plan (Word)
-
2008-2009 Assessment Plan (PDF)
- Appendices
(ZIP)
You may download the Division's 2009-10 year end assessment report by using either
of these links:
-
2009-2010 Assessment Plan (Word)
-
2009-2010 Assessment Plan (PDF)
- Appendices
(ZIP)