One of the largest national assessment programs for universities, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, is underway for its 2012 national report. While it is not used at Marquette, measures from the CLA program are supplemental to similar university-developed programs such as Marquette’s.
This year, the Council for Aid to Education renovated the CLA from a standardized national comparison tool to a program with a variety of tools for university-based assessment.
CLA standard assessment involves testing incoming and exiting students though a writing format intended to measure critical thinking and writing ability, and then compares the individual university’s data to that of institutions nationwide, said Chris Jackson, CAE’s director of business development.
The CLA assessment currently incorporates 40,000 to 50,000 total students annually in about 200 universities nationwide, Jackson said.
“Our goal is to help schools improve not only assessment, but also teaching and learning,” Jackson said. “We do that by providing tools to not only get at how their students are performing on our assessment … but also how they might adapt how they teach so to help students improve these skills.”
Marquette implements an integrated, university-developed learning assessment program, with assessment at the institutional, programatic and course levels.
The program is a collective design of the University Assessment Committee, Program Assessment Leaders in majors, departments, or co-curricular activities (such as service learning, international study, ministry and student development), along with other faculty members, said Gary Meyer, vice provost for undergraduate studies.
“You can’t ignore the fact that our accreditors require us to engage in some kind of assessment,” Meyer said. “But, to be really successful and build the kind of program that we are building, student learning has to be at the heart of it.”
Mike Tomsic, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, said he believes an individualized, but standard program would be a good addition to the current system.
“I think that would be a good thing for students personally to understand what they need to (work on) during the school year,” Tomsic said. “The test could also be passed on to teachers so they can know what students need to work on.”
The Marquette assessment program leaves individual student measurement up to each academic and co-curricular departments.
Barrett McCormick, political science department chair and the undergraduate program assessment leader, said his department uses pre-program and post-program writing assessments, but some majors (such as the biological sciences) use more nationally standardized tests to attain concrete evidence.
“As a whole (institution) and in individual departments, we are deeply committed to excellence in teaching,” McCormick said. “That’s more important than formal assessment.”
Meyer outlined the importance of assessment as a whole, whether measured against national, standardized data or by university-specific assessment.
“I think (assessment) is a means by which to demonstrate that we take our mission of (higher) education seriously … and that we have a sincere desire to ensure we do the things that we say that we’re going to do,” Meyer said. “We’re taking steps to ensure that we’re making good on our promise.”
Article by Kara Chiuchiarelli
Special to the Tribune