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[lindakrzy]

I am currently in charge of my school's assessment of learning plan.  Faculty are clearly not buying into the whole concept, yet accreditation requirements mandate this.  What can I do to get my faculty to at least accept this, and maybe somehow even see this is a way to foster improvement?

[choirguy]

A "Thou shalt . . . " from the Dean is usually necessary.  Until you get that, try to convince faculty that they are really not being asked to do anything on paper that they aren't already doing internally.  You just want them to write it down.  Failing that, you could invoke horror stories of schools who thumbed their noses at accreditors who demanded this exercise.  If all else fails, offer bottles of good Scotch.

[jjbfost159]

I agree that you should try to do it without the 'forcing them' type approach. We are currently in program review and it was handed down from our dean as a 'here we go again' project, making us less than thrilled to be involved.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I was recently involved in selling assessment to my university's faculty.  This despite the fact that I find the whole assessment push distasteful, and I think that expressions like "student learning outcomes" are largely devoid of meaning.

Most faculty think that assessment is an assault on them by administrators, accreditors, and legislators...and they're correct.  However, the accreditors are not really the bad guys here.  For years they have been running interference on behalf of the universities, and were quite happy to accept any scrap of movement in the direction of assessment, and sell it to the DoE and Congress.  Unfortunately, so many universities have been stalling this way for so long, and the pressure from above has been growing so great, that bulls*** is probably not going to work any more.

Assessment is going to happen, and the only way we as faculty can be in charge of our own destiny is to take ownership of the assessment process.    That means that the office should be faculty-controlled, that faculty should be in charge of deciding what gets assessed, how that assessment gets used/reported, and so on.  If faculty (a) are convinced that assessment is inevitable, (b) understand that if they don't come up with their own plan that something nasty (like standardized testing) will likely be imposed from above, and (c) are given protection against one-size-fits-all policies and assessment-as-punishment, then they can be convinced to buy in.

If your school's administration has decided that they want to design and control the assessment process, and wants a system where departments and individuals can be held individually liable for students lagging on global performance measures, then you will rightly encounter resistance, and there is not much you can do to generate acceptance. - DvF

[neutralname]

The biggest whip you can use is to say that if the school does not get accredited, then all the faculty will all be out of jobs. 

There's always the "assessment is as good as you make it" schtick and the "let's make this work for us" appeal.  Some faculty might buy it.

If you can find one example where doing outcomes assessment has improved a program, then that would be helpful.  Good luck to you on that -- I have never heard of a case.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

If you can find one example where doing outcomes assessment has improved a program, then that would be helpful.  Good luck to you on that -- I have never heard of a case.

Since nobody ever sets an analysis baseline for program assessment, there are no cases.  You can't prove improvement without a baseline.

For an individual class, that is a different matter.  Give an algebra exam at the beginning of the semester, then again at the end, and compare the difference.

Incidentally, I know assessment people who would not accept this example as an indicator of student learning outcomes, and in fact consider faculty who want to count this as somehow trying to cheat, or get around the assessment system.  These are the people who give assessment a bad name.  - DvF

[lindakrzy]

I agree with the "we gotta do it or we'll loose accreditation" and also that it has to be driven with power from the Dean's office.  But I really would like to get some positive responses from the faculty beyond, "this is just more bull**** and more administrative time taken out of my day"  (And by the way, as a faculty member myself (now associate dean) I understand and appreciate this point of view).  So, back to the questions posed by neutralname - are there some examples where assessment of learning has had a positive impact from the perspective of the faculty?

[neutralname]

If you can find one example where doing outcomes assessment has improved a program, then that would be helpful.  Good luck to you on that -- I have never heard of a case.

Since nobody ever sets an analysis baseline for program assessment, there are no cases.  You can't prove improvement without a baseline.

True, you can't prove improvement without a baseline.  But you can still improve.  In an ideal world, we could work on our courses and programs and demonstrate that our changes have led to increased student learning.  But we are in a far from ideal world, and my main reservation is that time taken to prove anything (and I'm not sure that much can be proved in fields outside of the very quantitative) will mean less time spent on actually improving the course or program. 

[daniel_von_flanagan]

True, you can't prove improvement without a baseline.  But you can still improve.  In an ideal world, we could work on our courses and programs and demonstrate that our changes have led to increased student learning.

I agree.  Tools should be made available to faculty and departments to help them identify places where their own courses and programs can be improved.   

The problem is that far to often assessment is imposed from above by administrators, and the results used in ways that are outside the control of the faculty and departments.  In such circumstances faculty buy-in cannot be expected. - DvF

[caeprylo]

When it comes to new initiatives, projects, etc, I've always found that unless the leaders are putting a positive spin on it and are fully supporting the faculty in making it happen, it won't get done and no-one will support it.  The "here we go again" approach might get people to move, but not in the way you want them to.