Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes

The material in this section has been adapted from the Handbook titled Course-based Review and Assessment: Methods for Understanding Student Learning, published by the Office of Academic Planning and Assessment at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. www.umass.edu/oapa/oapa/publications/. Martha L.A. Stassen, Kathryn Doherty and Myra Poe, authors. Used by permission. Edited and adapted by Linda Hansell, Community College of Philadelphia.

Tracking student achievement over time is one of the ways that you, as the instructor, have to document that students are really accomplishing what you intend. Specific outcomes that outline what a student must do to demonstrate completion of course goals make it easier to observe whether or not course goals have been achieved. Incorporating classroom assessment into your teaching and curriculum design facilitates specific documentation of results that clearly demonstrate student learning from the beginning of the semester until the end of the course.

Direct and Indirect Assessment Measures

Direct methods ask students to demonstrate their learning while indirect methods ask them to reflect on their learning. Direct methods include objective tests, essays, case studies, problem solving exercises, presentations and classroom assignments. Indirect methods include surveys, interviews and student reflection and/or self-assessment essays. It is useful to include both direct and indirect assessment measures in your assessments.

Strongly Recommended Assessment Tools

Specific assessment tools, listed below, are strongly recommended to faculty and department heads for their ability to provide useful information for accountability and, more importantly, to foster dialogue to improve student learning within courses. These three assessment tools are strongly recommended because they are concise and effective direct evaluations as opposed to indirect evaluations. Direct evaluations can be both formative (the gathering of information about student learning during the progression of a course or program, usually repeatedly, to improve the learning of those students) and summative (the gathering of information at the conclusion of the course, program or undergraduate career to improve learning or to meet accountability demands.)

1. Rubrics: These are the most flexible types of direct assessments and can be used to score any product or performance such as essays, portfolios, skill performances, oral exams, debates, project/product creation, oral presentations or a student’s body of work over the course of a semester. Since we are talking about assessing “official” course learning outcomes that are stated in course documents, all faculty teaching that course must agree on a detailed scoring system that delineates criteria used to discriminate among levels and is used for scoring a common assignment, product or performance or set of assignments, products or performances. Information can be obtained from the course document’s assignment and evaluation pages to help guide the creation of the rubric.

Pros:

• Defines clear expectations.
• Can be used to score many kinds of assignments or exams
• Faculty define standards and criteria and how they will be applied

Cons:

• Faculty must agree on how to define standards and criteria and how they will be applied

2. Common Final Exam or Common Capstone Project: These direct assessment methods integrate knowledge, concepts and skills associated with an entire sequence of study in a course. Either use the same final exam for all sections offered in a course (commercially produced/standardized test or locally developed final exam) or require a culminating final project that is similar (using the same grading rubric to evaluate).

Pros:

• Good method to measure growth over time with regard to a course
• Cumulative
• The data is more robust if all students complete the same assessment
• Provides an additional buffer between student learning performance and an individual instructor’s teaching performance

Cons:

• Focus and breadth of assessment are important
• Understanding all of the variables to produce assessment results is also important
• May result in additional course requirements
• Requires coordination and agreement on standards

3. Embedded Test Questions: Embed the same agreed upon questions that relate to the course’s student learning outcomes into the final exam for all sections of the course and analyze those results and/or embed the same agreed-upon requirements into the final project/assignment for all sections of the course and analyze those results.

Pros:

• Good method to measure growth over time with regards to a course
• Cumulative
• The data is more robust if all students complete the same assessment
• Provides an additional buffer between student learning performance and an individual instructor’s teaching performance
• Embedded questions can be reported as an aggregate

Cons:

• May result in additional course requirements
• Requires coordination and agreement on standards
• If some instructors embed and others do not, the data will be difficult to compare and analyze
• Separate analysis of embedded set of questions is required

Other Assessment Tool Options	Pros	Cons
Problem Solving Exercises Direct & Formative and/or Summative	displays analytical and synthetic thinking well authentic if real-world situations are used	difficult to grade due to multiple methods and potential multiple solutions(use a rubric to negate "con")
Case Study Direct & Formative and/or Summative	displays analytical and synthetic thinking well connects other knowledge to topic	creating the case is time consuming dependent upon student knowledge from multiple areas
Student-Created Flowchart or Diagram Assignment Direct & Formative and/or Summative	displays original synthetic thinking on the part of the student good way to display high- level thinking and articulation abilities	more difficult to grade, requiring a checklist or rubric for a variety of different answers difficult for some students to do on the spot
Standardized Cognitive Tests Direct & Formative and/or Summative	comparable between students developed and measured nationally to determine the level of learning in a specific field of study	heavily dependent on exposure to topics on test requires controlled conditions
Checklists Direct & Formative and/or Summative	very useful for skills or performances students know exactly what is missing	can minimize large picture and interrelatedness evaluation feedback is basically a yes/no – without detail
Reflective self- assessment Essay Direct and/or indirect &Summative	provides invaluable ability to evaluate affective growth in students	must use evidence to support conclusions, not just self-opinionated assessments
Student Surveys or Interviews Indirect & Summative	prompts reflection and metacognition in students	need a large sample size and good return rate to get accurate results
Pre-Test/Post-Test Evaluations (Variation): Videotape can be used for assessment in theatre, music, art, and speech communication Direct & Formative and/or Summative	monitor student progression and learning useful for determining where skills and knowledge deficiencies exist and where they most frequently develop	faculty must agree to protocol more time consuming for students specific progress throughout the term is not available
Multiple Choice Exam Direct & Formative and/or Summative	easy to grade objective aligns specifically with learning outcomes	reduces assessment to multiple choice answers

Chart derived from Chabot, Mira Costa, Cabrillo and Long Beach City colleges’ websites