Education Commons^™

Assessment And Evaluation In Online Learning, Ross A. Perkins

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Humans are evaluative by nature. It is quite likely one of the essential characteristics of our species that has allowed us to persist for hundreds of thousands of years. Despite what might be considered our almost instinctual inclination to assess or evaluate, we do not always do it well. There are any number of examples of the wrong questions being asked, or the wrong data being collected, or the wrong analysis being conducted, or the wrong conclusions being drawn. An aphorism, perhaps especially well known to readers of this text, warns, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The maxim …

Designing Program Evaluation Outcomes To Mirror Council For Human Services Education (Cshse) Standards At The Baccalaureate Degree Level, Kristy L. Carlisle, Shuntay Z. Tarver, Mark C. Rehfuss

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

The article highlights the designing program evaluation and its maintenance with the Council for Human Services Education (CSHSE) standards at the baccalaureate degree level in universities & colleges. Topics include that CSHSE requires all accredited human services educational programs to articulate strategies for improving their programs and its importance in the accreditation process.

Capstone Assessment As Faculty Development, Rowanna L. Carpenter, Seanna M. Kerrigan, Vicki Reitenauer

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University (PSU) is a public institution in Portland, Oregon, serving 28,000 students, including 23,000 undergraduates. PSU implemented Capstone courses in 1995 as the culminating experience in the revised general education program, University Studies (UNST). Capstones at PSU are community‐based courses composed of interdisciplinary teams of students actively engaged with community partners, designed to address the UNST learning goals (inquiry and critical thinking; communication; ethics and social responsibility; and diversity, equity, and social justice). Each Capstone course creates one or more collaboratively developed final products intended to serve the community partner.

In this article, we describe the evolution of …

Assessment As Critical Programmatic Reflection, Vicki Reitenauer, Rowanna L. Carpenter

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article argues that general education assessment is an opportunity for engaging faculty and the general education program as a whole in critical reflection on the practices and pedagogies that affect the entire undergraduate body. Through intentional assessment practices tied to learning outcomes, pedagogical expectations, and faculty and student classroom experience, an assessment program can meet accreditation expectations while serving as a rich location for critical reflection and continuous improvement. To illustrate, this article takes the reader through a year in the life of University Studies' assessment at Portland State University. It provides details about the individual elements of our …

Standards-Based Assessment In A Developmental Math Course, Valorie L. Zonnefeld, Michal Huizenga, Aaron Van Beek, Kate Van Weelden

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Learn why we decided to try standards-based instruction in an undergraduate, developmental algebra course and what we learned in the process.

Predicting Positive Education Outcomes For Emerging Adults In Mental Health Systems Of Care, Eileen M. Brennan, Peggy Nygren, Robert L. Stephens, Adrienne Croskey

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Emerging adults who receive services based on positive youth development models have shown an ability to shape their own life course to achieve positive goals. This paper reports secondary data analysis from the Longitudinal Child and Family Outcome Study including 248 culturally-diverse youth ages 17 through 22 receiving mental health services in systems of care. After 12 months of services, school performance was positively related to youth ratings of school functioning, and service participation and satisfaction. Regression analysis revealed ratings of young peoples’ perceptions of school functioning and their experience in services added to the significant prediction of satisfactory school …

Resources Preservice Teachers Use To Think About Student Writing, Leah A. Zuidema, James E. Fredricksen

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

This article identifies five categories of resources that preservice teachers drew on as they considered student writing and planned their own approaches to assessing and teaching writing. Identifying these resources helps us better understand how beginning writing teachers think about student writing—and better understand mismatches that commonly occur between what teacher educators teach and what new teachers actually do. Our study builds on literature that considers how writing teachers are prepared, extends research about how preservice teachers use what they learn,and adds layers of detail to literature about the resources that beginning teachers draw upon to aid and support them …

Pre-Assessment: Promises And Cautions, Thomas R. Guskey, Jay Mctighe

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

To ensure that pre-assessment is worth the time and effort, keep these principles in mind.

A Written Instrument For Assessing Students’ Units Coordination Structures, Anderson Norton, Steven Boyce, Nathan Phillips, Tessa Anwyll, Catherine Ulrich, Jesse L. M. Wilkins

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Units coordination refers to students’ abilities to create units and maintain their relationships with other units that they contain or constitute. In recent research, units coordination has arisen as a key construct that mediates opportunities for student learning across several domains of mathematics, including fractions knowledge and algebraic reasoning. To date, assessments of students’ stages of units coordinating ability have relied upon clinical interviews or teaching experiments whose time-intensive nature precludes opportunities for conducting large-scale studies. We introduce a written instrument that teachers and researchers can use with large populations of students. We report on the reliability and validity of …

A Comparative Study Of Competency-Based Courses Demonstrating A Potential Measure Of Course Quality And Student Success, Jackie Krause, Laura Portolese, Christopher Schedler

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

While competency-based education is growing, standardized tools for evaluating the unique characteristics of course design in this domain are still under development. This preliminary research study evaluated the effectiveness of a rubric developed for assessing course design of competency-based courses in an undergraduate Information Technology and Administrative Management program. The rubric, which consisted of twenty-six individual measures, was used to evaluate twelve new courses. Additionally, the final assessment scores of nine students who completed nine courses in the program were evaluated to determine if a correlation exists between student success and specific indicators of quality in the course design. The …

Designing And Assessing Learning Outcomes: A Framework For Co-Curricular Sustainability Programs, Heather E. Spalding, Dilafruz R. Williams, Vicki L. Wise

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, Co-Curricular Sustainability Programs (CoCSPs) have been established at many higher education institutions. However, few such programs have developed learning outcomes or assessment processes to measure the types of learning that are occurring within their programs. This case study creates synthesis between sustainability education and student leadership competencies and shares a place-based framework for designing and assessing learning outcomes. By utilizing learning outcomes and assessment processes, leadership educators can strengthen the effectiveness of their sustainability programs and facilitate transformational learning experiences for students across campus.

A Few Questions We're No Longer Asking About Assessment : The Assessment Landscape And Possible Futures, Todd Lundberg, Gary R. Brown, Robin Jeffers

Office of Academic Innovation Publications

This presentation addresses the current assessment landscape, possible and quickly emerging futures. Presenters, all experienced assessment designers/practitioners, address the topic from a 4-year/national, a 2-year/Washington state, and an educational policy perspective. To guide the conversation, presenters pose "what if" questions based on the changing needs of students and current research into effective pedagogies.

Compared To What? Reconsidering Assessment In Higher Education, Gary R. Brown

Office of Academic Innovation Publications

There is, as Peter Ewell has recently observed, a tension between accountability and improvement. Batson elaborates, noting the parallel realization is dawning that tracking student outcomes toward learning goals, while a useful and necessary exercise, does not yield as much value as we had thought. Batson argues that developing an accountability system has provided rewards to faculty and student painfully insufficient to warrant the work such development requires. Batson argues that ePortfolios provide a rich alternative. This presentation will demonstrate with real student ePortfolio case studies nested within the context of organizational ePortfolio to provide an example that suggests Batson's …

Assessment Alchemy: Transforming Data Into Action--Why It Is Mostly Myth And What To Do About It, Gary R. Brown

Office of Academic Innovation Publications

There is evidence that institutions and faculty are doing more to assess their programs and their innovations. But subsequent evidence that assessment and research are useful for guiding productive changes in teaching practice and that they improve the student learning experience remains elusive. This presentation will share the story of several different studies that have produced little impact on practice despite substantial or significant results. In comparison, a few (sometimes small) studies have offered insights and avenues that have demonstrated an impact, though not necessarily in ways we might expect. This session will explore conditions and strategies that can make …

Assessment Issues Direct, Indirect, And Assessment Utility, Gary R. Brown

Office of Academic Innovation Publications

A National University Telecommunications Network webinar presented at the Ohio Learning Network, Central Ohio Regional Center Winter Learning Institute on Jan. 26, 2009. Focuses on assessment, measures to consider, and curriculum review. Discusses improving learning competencies and providing learning experiences that foster the development of critical learning skills. Attempts to answer the question "Does the measure guide improvement?"

Developing Students' Critical Thinking Skills, Gary R. Brown

Office of Academic Innovation Publications

A presentation delivered at the University of Texas at Arlington, focusing on critical thinking and its implications for practice: assignments, facilitation, and involving students.

Examining The Skills, Attitudes, And Perceptions Of Developmental Writing Students At A Midwestern Private College, William P. Elgersma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Postsecondary degree-granting institutions recognize that students lack necessary academic skills, but the characteristics of this at-risk population have not been as clearly identified. As well, the value of remedial programs that serve this at-risk population need to be investigated.

The survey instruments for this study were developed by the researcher. The purpose of the study was to examine the skills, attitudes, and perceptions of basic writers of a remedial writing course Academic Skills Center (ASK 060) at a private Midwestern college. Specifically, this study identified the value of the remedial writing program related to perceived level of competence and academic …

Reevaluating Course Completion In Distance Education—Avoiding The Comparison Between Apples And Oranges, Scott L. Howell, R. Dwight Laws, Nathan K. Lindsay

Faculty Publications

Critics of distance education frequently assert that completion rates are lower in distance education courses than in traditional courses. Such criticism comes despite sparse and inconclusive research on completion rates for distance and traditional education courses. This article reviews some of the existing research and then describes some of the caveats and complexities in comparing completion rates in traditional and distance education. Analysis reveals that numerous factors make comparison between these two formats difficult, if not impossible. Problems include limitations in the research design itself, differences in student demographics, and inconsistent methods of calculating and reporting completion. After exploring these …