Glossary of Assessment Terms
Assessment: The systematic and on-going process of collecting, interpreting, and acting on information relating to the goals and outcomes developed to support an institution’s mission and purpose. It answers the questions: What are we trying to do? How well are we doing it? How can we improve what we are doing?
Assessment of Learning Outcomes: The process of determining the extent to which a learner has mastered an intended learning outcome.
Benchmark: A standard of comparison against which performance can be measured or assessed.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives: Six levels arranged in order of increasing
complexity (1=low, 6=high):
1. Knowledge: Recalling or remembering information without necessarily understanding it. Includes behaviors such as describing, listing, identifying, and labeling.
2. Comprehension: Understanding learned material and includes behaviors such as explaining, discussing, and interpreting.
3. Application: The ability to put ideas and concepts to work in solving problems. It includes behaviors such as demonstrating, showing, and making use of information.
4. Analysis: Breaking down information into its component parts to see interrelationships and ideas. Related behaviors include differentiating, comparing, and categorizing.
5. Synthesis: The ability to put parts together to form something original. It involves using creativity to compose or design something new.
6. Evaluation: Judging the value of evidence based on definite criteria. Behaviors related to evaluation include: concluding, criticizing, prioritizing, and recommending.
Course Embedded Assessment: Reviewing materials generated in the classroom. In addition to providing a basis for grading students, such materials allow faculty to evaluate approaches to instruction and course design.
Direct Measures of Learning: Students (learners) display knowledge and skills as they respond directly to the instrument itself. Direct measures are more reliable indicators of student learning than indirect measures. Examples include classroom and homework assignments, examinations and quizzes, capstone courses, student portfolios, and artistic performances.
E-Portfolio: A portfolio that is maintained online, containing student work in digital format.
Educational Objectives: Statements that describe the expected accomplishments of graduates during the first few years after graduation
Formative evaluation: Improvement-oriented assessment. The use of a broad range of instruments and procedures during a course of instruction or during a period of organizational operations in order to facilitate mid-course adjustments.
Goals: Goals are used to express intended results in general terms. The term goals are used to describe broad learning concepts, for example: clear communication, problem solving, and ethical awareness. A goal typically describes the output (product or service) a department is planning to achieve through its organized activities.
Indirect Measures of Learning: Students (learners) are asked to reflect on their learning rather than to demonstrate it. Indirect measures often rely on perception and are less meaningful for assessment than direct measures. They are, however, helpful to corroborate the results of direct measures. Examples include exit surveys, student opinion surveys, alumni surveys, grades not based on scoring guidelines, retention and graduation statistics, career development over time, and student activities.
Institutional Effectiveness: The extent to which an institution has a clearly defined mission and institutional outcomes, measures progress towards achieving those outcomes, and engages in continuous efforts to improve programs and services.
Intended Learning Outcome: An expression of the faculty member’s expectation of the knowledge, skill, or attribute that the student is to learn.
Learning: The intentional process of acquiring knowledge, skills or attributes. The process requires the engagement of the learner and leads to a demonstrable change in the way the learner relates to his or her environment.
Learning Outcome: The change in knowledge, skills, or attributes that results from a learning activity. Learning outcomes are statements that describe what students are expected to know, think, and be able to do by the end of the course or by graduation. Department or unit outcomes are what you want to achieve; they are desired end results for the organization or program, rather than actions. Learning outcomes may be intended or unintended. Outcomes are related to the institution or department’s mission and vision, and focus on the benefit to the recipient of the service.
Measurements: Design of strategies, techniques and instruments for collecting feedback data that evidence the extent to which students demonstrate the desired behaviors.
Methods of Assessment: Techniques or instruments used in assessment.
Mission: The purpose of an organization or program; its reason for existing. Mission statements provide the strategic vision or direction of the organization or program and should be simple, easily understood, and communicated widely.
Objectives: Objectives are the tasks to be completed in order to achieve a goal. Objectives are specific and measurable and must be accomplished within a specified time period.
Performance Assessment: The process of using student activities or products, as opposed to tests or surveys, to evaluate students’ knowledge, skills, and development. Methods include: essays, oral presentations, exhibitions, performances, and demonstrations. Examples include: reflective journals (daily/weekly); capstone experiences; demonstrations of student work (e.g. acting in a theatrical production, playing an instrument, observing a student teaching a lesson); products of student work (e.g. Art students produce paintings/drawings, Journalism students write newspaper articles, Geography students create maps, Computer Science students generate computer programs, etc.).
Portfolio: An accumulation of evidence about individual proficiencies, especially in relation to learning standards. Examples include but are not limited to: Samples of student work including projects, journals, exams, papers, presentations, videos of speeches and performances.
Program Review: Periodic self-studies in which departments are asked to present their mission statements; resources, including the number of faculty, faculty qualifications and productivity, teaching load, curriculum, and technology; learning outcomes and assessment measures; the ways in which departments have shared assessment results and used those results to inform departmental decision-making; and plans for improving learning.
Qualitative Methods of Assessment: Methods that rely on descriptions rather than numbers. Examples of qualitative data include surveys, focus groups, and feedback from external reviewers.
Quantitative Methods of Assessment: Methods that rely on numerical scores or ratings. Examples of quantitative data include test scores, grades, certification exam results, and graduation and retention rates.
Reliability: Reliable measures are measures that produce consistent responses over time.
Rubric: An outline showing the standards by which assignments will be evaluated. A rubric is a tool for use by both faculty and students by which faculty can decide what constitutes excellent performance (especially when dealing with processes and abstract concepts) and so that students understand the standards used to grade assignments. It also provides a way for diverse groups of faculty and/or students to discuss evaluation and assessment issues.
SACS: Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, SACS, is the accrediting agency for our college. This organization periodically reviews all operations of our college to ensure that the college meets the expectations for educational excellence.
Strategies: Strategies are the means you plan to use to achieve your objectives. There should be a minimum number of strategies to achieve each objective.
Student Evaluation: The process of quantifying the skill level or mastery of an attribute of a learner (e.g. awarding grades).
Summative evaluation: Accountability-oriented assessment. The use of data assembled at the end of a particular sequence of activities, to provide a macro view of teaching, learning, and institutional effectiveness.
Technical Skills: Abilities that are critical for success in specific vocational, technical, or professional occupations. Some technical skills may be common to several programs offered by the college while others may be unique to a single program.
Validity: As applied to a test refers to a judgment concerning how well a test does in fact measure what it purports to measure.
References
The American University in Cairo. 2007. A Guide to Developing and Implementing Effective Outcomes Assessment. http://www.aucegypt.edu/research/IR/assess/Documents/Assessment%20Guide_Admin.pdf
Bloom, B.S. 1956. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.
State University of New York Potsdam. 2010. Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Website. http://www.potsdam.edu/offices/ie/assessment/
University of Central Florida. 2008. Administrative Unit Assessment Handbook. http://oeas.ucf.edu/doc/adm_assess_handbook.pdf
University of Oregon. 2010. Student Affairs Assessment Website http://sa-assessment.uoregon.edu/Resources/WritingStudentLearningOutcomes.aspx
Vanderbilt University. 2010. Assessment Website. http://virg.vanderbilt.edu/AssessmentPlans/Home.aspx
Walvoord, Barbara. E. 2010. Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education 2nd Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Craven Community College
Department of Research and Planning – October 22, 2010