FAQs: Assessment of General Education at CMU
Why is assessment of General Education being implemented now?
At CMU, assessment already occurs at the program and department level; general education must also be assessed for the same reasons that program and department level assessment is occurring. Assessment is necessary to ensure that the student learning outcomes for all UP Groups and competencies are being met and for accreditation purposes. The point is to improve student learning, above all else.
What, exactly, is being assessed? Am I being assessed as a faculty member?
The student learning outcomes (or SLOs) of the UP subgroups and competencies are being assessed, not individual courses or faculty. The identity of faculty members, students and courses is protected because faculty redact that information before submitting student work for assessment. Furthermore, since faculty will only submit a small percentage of student work examples it is impossible to arrive at a valid assessment of individual faculty or courses.
How are courses selected for assessment?
All courses from each UP subgroup, and all competencies, will be assessed on a rotating basis. Two groups will be assessed each year (i.e. Year 1: Subgroup I and IV; Year 2: Subgroup II and III). The assessment of competencies will be embedded in this assessment: that is, if your course is both a Subgroup IA and Writing Intensive course, the work you submit will be scored twice – once with the IA rubric, and once with the WI rubric. Faculty will not have to do anything extra if their courses meet both a subgroup and competency requirement.
When will my course(s) be assessed?
The tentative calendar is as follows:
2015-2016: Subgroups IA (fall) and IVC (fall); Subgroup IB (spring)
2016-2017: Groups II (fall) and III (spring)
2017-2018: Groups I (fall) and IV (spring)
2018-2019: Groups II and III
2019-2020: Groups I and IV
The cycle repeats itself from this point forward. Faculty whose courses will be assessed will be notified at the beginning of the semester prior to the one in which they will be asked to submit student work (i.e. beginning of summer session for fall assessment; beginning of the fall semester for spring assessment). This is done in order to give faculty time to think about what assignment(s) they will use and submit for assessment.
What is my role or responsibility in General Education assessment?
Faculty members should implement assignments in their coursesthat addressthe SLOs of their subgroup in some way (either directly or indirectly). Faculty willcollect a small number of ungraded samples of those assignments and submit themto the General Education Office. In addition to the student work, faculty should submit a detailed answer key or rubric that explains what a good answer or response is, as opposed to a mediocre one. This will help faculty assessors in the scoring of student work. Do not just send the rubrics or keys you develop for assessment. Please submit the student work and the rubric that you used to grade the work.
The SLOs for all subgroups and competencies can be located here:
What happens to the student work that I submit for assessment?
The student work is checked in and if there is any identifying information on any of the work, it is removed. The submission will also be checked for an answer key to the assignment; if one is not included, the faculty member will be contacted to provide one. The work is then numbered and entered into a spreadsheet. Faculty will be sent an acknowledgment email once their submission is received and checked in.
How will the student work I submit be assessed?
At the end of the academic year, assessment workshops are held where faculty assessors score all submitted student work against rubrics developed for each subgroup and/or competency. These faculty assessors come from the subgroups being assessed, and they use submitted answer keys to the assignments in their scoring. The scores are entered into a spreadsheet, and analyzed. Outcomes are reported to the General Education Committee, the Assessment Council and the campus community via the internal general education website.
How many assignments should be submitted?
If one assignment incorporates all of the SLOs of the subgroup, one should be submitted. If no one assignment incorporates all SLOs, faculty should submit multiple assignments, indicating which SLOs each addresses. If faculty assess only some of the SLOs in their class (i.e. they do not assess all of the SLOs of their subgroup SLOs in their class), they should submit the assignment(s) which addresses the most SLOs of the subgroup. Faculty should also remember to include an answer key that explains the assignment(s) and defines what (to them) is a good versus a mediocre piece of work.
I teach multiple sections of one course. Do I have to submit student work for all sections? (Or: there are many faculty who teach sections of one of my courses. Do all faculty have to submit student work?)
The answer to both questions is yes. If you teach multiple sections of one general education course, you will be asked to submit work from each section. If many faculty teach sections of one general education course, all faculty will be asked to submit work from their sections. This is because the goal is to assess whether or not students are gaining competency in the SLOs of the subgroups; thus, samples of student work are needed from all classes regardless of who teaches them.
What types of student work are appropriate for assessment?
The most important consideration is that the assignment requires students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the SLOs that are being assessed. Assignments that askstudents to demonstrate their understanding through analysis, synthesis, critical thinking and the like are more conducive for assessment purposes than assignments that require only recall or recognition. Examples of assignments that may be appropriate include (but are not limited to) essays, lab reports, mini-research papers or quantitative problems for which the student’s computational work is shown.
What types are inappropriate (and why)?
Multiple choice, short answer, matching and group assignments do not provide enough detail or independent work for the faculty assessors to score competency levels.However, if these are the only types of assignments that are used in a course, and faculty cannot create or implement any other type of assessment, they should submit them for assessment.
What if none of my assignments address the SLOs of my subgroup (or only address one or two of the SLOs)?
In this situation, the faculty member should consider either re-tooling an existing assignment or creating a new assignment that addresses all of the SLOs. The point is to get an overall “snapshot” of how the subgroup (and/or competency) is working; this cannot be achieved if faculty are not covering all of the SLOs in their courses. Faculty should also remember that, unlike courses in a major or minor where all program SLOs are addressed over numerous courses, general education courses should be designed to “stand alone” since students are required to take only one course from each subgroup.
In a multi-sectioned course that is taught by more than one faculty person, one suggestion is for all faculty to design one assignment that they all give at the same point in the semester. This would help to ensure that there is some consistency between sections of a course in the teaching and assessment of SLOs. Departments that have many general education courses may wish to design assignments for each class that can be used for assessment purposes. These, of course, are just suggestions; faculty should submit work that they believe best reflects an understanding and mastery of the SLOs of their subgroup.
Why can’t course grades be used for assessment? This would mean that student work would not even need to be collected.
There are many studies that show that course grades do not provide the same insight that a course assessment does. The problems, which are the same problems associated with using multiple-choice tests for assessment, are as follows:
- Grades give a global evaluation but do not provide sufficiently detailed information about which course outcomes students are mastering well and which are giving them trouble.
- Because many factors contribute to an assigned grade, it is almost impossible to make inferences about what a student knows or can do solely by looking at that grade. Grades often reflect performance on multiple concepts.
- Grades sometimes are based on more than mastery of course content: for example, participation, attendance, or bonus points might be included as part of an overall grade.
- Grading standards often vary widely among different instructors and do not indicate the same degree of mastery of course outcomes. One instructor’s “A” might be another instructor’s “B.”
- What a faculty person is trying to assess in his or her particular assignment for a course can be different from the broader student learning outcomes of the subgroup of which the course is a part. A student might do very well on a class assignment, but score poorly on assessment of SLOs (or, the opposite might occur).
How are students selected for assessment?
Instructors whose courses are being assessed will be given specific directions on how to randomly select students for assessment. Typically, the instructor will be asked to select students from their alphabetical class list at a set interval (i.e. every fourth student). Sampling methods may change as more assessment of general education occurs.
Are students informed of their participation in assessment?
No, students whose work is selected are not informed of their participation or treated any differently than non-selected students. The identity of students is protected because faculty redact any identifying information from the student work before they submit it for assessment. You may wish to include a brief statement about assessment on your syllabus such as: “work products submitted by students to fulfill course requirements may be used by the university to evaluate its academic programs and general education requirements.”
What happens if I don’t submit student work for assessment?
All courses in the General Education curriculum are re-certified every seven years. If student work has not been submitted for assessment purposes, the course will not be re-certified and will be removed from the curriculum. If faculty do no submit their courses for recertification, their course will be removed from the curriculum.
I’d like to be more involved in assessment. Are there other opportunities for faculty to participate in the assessment of General Education?
Please email the director of general education for information on how you can get more involved in assessment.
Is general education assessment here to stay?
In short, yes. Assessment of general education is critical to the university’s mission and for accreditation purposes.
If I have further questions, whom can I contact?
The Director of General Education at .