Course Assessment Plan Development

Course-level assessments -- and assessment in general -- are multi-step processes. In order to assess student learning most effectively, instructors should follow a process involving specifying goals and outcomes to be assessed, aligning methods and evidence with the specific learning outcomes to establish whether the outcomes have been met, collecting data, interpreting the results, and then closing the loop to identify instructional successes, refinements, and/or modifications.

Step 1: Articulate Course Goals and Learning Objectives

Before course-level assessment can begin, it is critical to articulate the goals and outline the learning outcomes of the course.  Without clearly explicated course goals and learning outcomes, it is not possible to assess whether the course is effective. Why do we need both?

• Course goals provide the big picture of the course for you and for your students; these set out a direction for the course and sometimes beyond.
• Course learning outcomes provide achievable and assessable elements of those goals.

Both goals and learning outcomes should assume successful completion of the course.

Course Goals Guidelines

• Course goals should be broad statements of what you want your students to be able to do or care about by the end of the course.
• Course goals should be student-centered, not teaching-centered: "students will learn to..." rather than "this course will teach..." or "in this course, I plan to...".
• Course goals may use "fuzzy" general verbs like "understand," "appreciate," "value," "perceive," and "grasp," which are not appropriate for learning outcomes.
• Course goals need not use observable and measurable verbs, which must be used for learning outcomes.

Learning Outcomes Guidelines

• Just like course goals, learning outcomes should be learning-centered, not teaching-centered: “students will be able to…” rather than “students will be exposed to…”.
• Learning outcomes should use specific action verbs that identify clear, measurable, observable outcomes (for examples, see the information on Bloom’s taxonomy and the chart below).
• Learning outcomes should avoid verbs such as “understand,” “appreciate,” and “value,” which are not necessarily observable or measurable.
• Learning outcomes should be limited to one verb unless it is known that students will always do and accomplish both things in the same assignment or task. For example, if they will always analyze before drawing conclusions, then using both verbs in a single learning outcome is appropriate.  However, verbs that don’t always happen together in course assignments will become more complicated to assess if left in the same learning outcome.

When creating learning outcomes, it is also important to make sure that they directly connect to the assignments and activities in a class. In order to measure whether the learning outcomes are being met, there must be assignments and activities designed to specifically address them.

Examples of Course Goals and Learning Outcomes

The examples below represent a variety of course disciplines and class contexts. Remember, while course goals can be more general, learning outcomes must be observable and measurable so it is possible to assess whether they have been met during the course.

Example 1:

Goal: By the end of this course, the successful student will understand the scientific method. 

Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, the successful student will be able to do the following:

1. Distinguish between a hypothesis, a theory, and a law;
2. Define each of the above from a scientific experiment;
3. Outline the steps of the scientific method for each lab experiment;
4. Generate predictions, based on the outcomes of each lab experiment; and
5. Maintain the distinction between predicted and observed results, even if the lab experiment fails to produce the expected results.

Example 2:

Goal: This course is intended to equip students with skills needed to locate, gather, and use information intellectually and responsibly. 

Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, students should be able to accomplish the following:

1. Demonstrate the ability to locate and gather information through libraries, the world wide web, and "field" research methods, such as interviews and surveys;
2. Evaluate the sources of information;
3. Analyze, summarize, and synthesize information from diverse sources;
4. Apply information gained through research to a given situation;
5. Communicate to others information, conclusions, and arguments through writing and the use of tables, graphs, and other visual rhetoric; and
6. Appropriately cite sources of information.

Example 3:

Goal: Students will learn how to consistently and skillfully use critical thinking to comprehend the world and reason about situations, issues, and problems they confront. 

Learning Outcomes: Students will learn how to do the following:

1. Identify the elements of reasoning when thinking about personal, professional, and civic situations, issues, and problems: its purpose(s), the question(s) to be answered or problem(s) to be solved, the requisite information or evidence required, inferences made and assumptions they are based on, concepts and principles being used, implications or consequences of the reasoning, and points of view or frames of reference being used;
2. Skillfully use the universal intellectual standards of clarity, accuracy, relevance, precision, logicality, breadth, depth, completeness, significance, and fairness to assess and evaluate the quality of reasoning used when considering each the elements of reasoning in Outcome One;
3. Reliably and consistently engage in rational thinking by recognizing and avoiding their own and others' egocentric and sociocentric biases; and
4. Exhibit the intellectual traits or dispositions of intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy, intellectual integrity, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, confidence in reason, intellectual empathy, and fair-mindedness.

Evaluating Goals and Outcomes

Writing course goals and learning outcomes can be a difficult process since it requires us to be very explicit with our expectations and plans for the course. Here are a few questions you may want to ask yourself (or a colleague) after you have drafted versions of your course goals and outcomes to ensure that they are clear and understandable.

• Are these course goals or learning outcomes or both?
• Are the course goals written using appropriate verbs?
• Are the learning outcomes written using active, observable, measurable verbs? Can you imagine ways that they could actually be assessed?
• Do they complete the sentence stem, “Upon completion of the course (or some other milestone), the successful student will be able to…”?
• If an outsider read these goals and outcomes, would they be able to understand the course goals and learning outcomes as written?
• What questions would I want to ask if I were a student about these course goals and learning outcomes?
• Are there aspects or concepts that seem to be missing from the course goals and learning outcomes?

Step 2: Develop an Assessment Strategy

Assessment is a strategy to improve student learning in which three key questions should be asked and addressed at the course-level:

1. What do you want students to know, be able to do, and what perspectives should they acquire, as a result of this particular course? This is answered by having clearly articulated course goals for each class.
2. How do you know students achieved the intended/expected goals for learning? This is answered by collecting/summarizing/evaluating evidence about student learning systematically using a planned means and aligning this evidence with the goals and outcomes that each measures.
3. How do you use the collected evidence to improve student learning/outcomes in an ongoing continuous improvement cycle? This is answered by regularly evaluating and communicating the collected evidence, using the evidence to help guide decisions and actions to improve the course and facilitate student learning, and then continuing in the iterative assessment cycle.

While it is not necessary to create a formalized plan to use assessment in your course, many people find it helpful to organize their goals and the timeframe in which they intend to assess specific goals and learning outcomes. There are a few things to keep in mind when you are developing a strategy for assessing your course:

• It is not necessary to evaluate all of your learning outcomes at once. In fact, it is often better to start by focusing on a few of the most important learning outcomes for your class to evaluate whether those are currently being satisfied in your course. Assessment is an ongoing process and during different terms or permutations of the course you can focus on different course goals and learning outcomes. Note: Creating an implementation schedule (see below in Developing a Written Assessment Plan) can be helpful as you strategize which learning outcomes you will immediately focus on and which ones you want to focus on later.
• It is also not necessary to continuously evaluate the same learning outcomes. Once you have monitored a learning outcome, made changes to ensure your students are meeting the learning outcome, and seen that those changes are working, you can focus on assessing other learning outcomes for your course. However, to make sure that your changes continue to help your students’ meet the learning outcomes, it is recommended that you check back in with their success periodically. Remember, assessment is an ongoing process, you want to ensure that the changes you make are helping students to learn, and continue to do that down the road.
• It is a good idea to get a sense of your assessment timeline. Your timeline for course-level assessment is going to depend on how frequently the course you are assessing is offered. It is recommended that, even with an infrequently offered course, that you not go beyond three years without assessing some of your learning outcomes.

Developing a Written Assessment Plan

Answering the above questions is accomplished more formally by developing and implementing an assessment plan, and using and reevaluating findings and evidence about student learning regularly and systematically. Oftentimes, the assessment plan can also be used when preparing an assessment report, but the plan does not necessarily have to be intended for other people to review the results of your assessment project. An assessment plan is a blueprint for how a course will be assessed or evaluated over time, to determine whether students are achieving the expected learning goals. Written assessment plans typically have the following key components:

• Goals and outcomes - The broad learning goals for the course should be stated separately. Each goal will also have associated learning outcomes that are more specific and easier to measure, which together help assess the broader goal.
• Methods for assessing goals and outcomes - Methods are the procedures used to determine if students have met the learning outcome. Indicate the method, or means, by which the quality of student learning for each goal and associated outcome will be measured and assessed. The same method, such as a survey or a paper in a capstone course, could be used to assess multiple goals. If so, the same method should be aligned with each goal or outcome it is used to assess. Sometimes all of the measures for several outcomes together can provide a means for assessing a broader goal. Multiple measures may be used to assess a single goal or outcome. If so, all of the methods used to assess that goal or outcome should be aligned with the means/measures for that goal or outcome.
• Criteria - The criteria are the standards that will be used to determine if students in the course achieved the expected learning goals and outcomes. Criteria should be established for each goal and outcome, and ideally would include both minimum and aspirational levels to assess their success.
• Use of information - How information and evidence gathered about student learning will be evaluated, whether it will be shared regularly and with whom, and how it will be employed systematically to improve learning outcomes, should be planned and specified. How the information will be used is often the same for evidence collected for all goals and outcomes, but could vary for selected goals and data.
• Implementation schedule - The implementation schedule indicates the expected time frame assessment of a goal or outcome will be initiated and continued, as well as the frequency of assessment. Some assessment projects take place over a multi-year period while others may take place within a single year. However, since assessment tends to be part of an iterative process, it can often be a valuable exercise to think about how the assessment plan can fit into a larger time frame. It is also important to re-assess course elements that have been changed based on assessment data to see whether those changes have improved student learning in relation to the learning outcomes.

Step 3: Collect Data on Student Learning

Collect Data on Student Learning

Step 4: Interpret the Data on Learning

Results of assessment methods should be deliberately aligned with those learning outcomes established at the outset of the assessment process. The type of assessment results is going to depend on the learning outcome and the type of information that can support whether the learning outcome has been sufficiently accomplished during the course of the term. Therefore, as you are developing your assessment plan, it is important to think about and specify what your criteria for excellence, or success, will look like for your learning outcomes. If the methods you used to assess the learning outcome are in alignment, once you have collected your data, then you can apply your criteria to determine whether students have adequately met your expectations for their learning, or they have not. If your students met your minimum criteria or criteria for excellence, here are a few questions to consider:

• Were your expectations for your students appropriate? Were your minimum expectations too low for your class?  Should you raise your expectations about what your students should be able to do in the future?
• What did you do to ensure that your students could meet your learning outcomes? Did you design specific activities, give good feedback, dedicate more class time, etc.?  Could you replicate this process for other learning outcomes in your course?
• How much did the ability of the students to excel deal with qualities of your students and that individual course (for example, were they all majors, was it a small class size, were they very engaged in the course content, etc.)? And how much of their success related directly to you and what you did as the instructor? These are good questions to ask so that you can compare results between different sections of the same class or between different terms.

If your students did not meet your minimum criteria for your learning outcome, here are a few questions to consider:

• Does your method of assessment actually address the outcome that you are trying to assess? For example, are you trying to determine whether students can develop testable hypotheses, but you are relying on the results of a multiple-choice question to do that?  Alternatively, the activity may be assessing something similar to the learning outcome, but not the outcome as it was written.  In this case, you may need to reevaluate the learning outcome or reformulate the assignment to make sure it adequately addresses the learning outcome as it was written.
• Did your students have enough of an opportunity to practice and receive feedback about this learning outcome? Without sufficient time dedicated to the task and feedback about their progress, they may not have had time to sufficiently learn the concept to the point that they could apply it to a new situation or context.
  • Could you develop additional exercises, problems, activities, etc. to help them address this topic?
  • Can you devote more time in your class to it?
  • What else could you do differently to help the students learn the material?
• How did the students react to this topic? Were there other extenuating circumstances (such as a fire drill, snow day, instructor being sick, etc.) that may have distracted the students from the task at hand?

Step 5: Modify the Learning Experience

One of the fundamental goals of assessment is not just to collect data, but also to use those data to improve the teaching and learning process. Therefore, an important part of the assessment cycle is applying those results to address student learning and the education process. 

An important part of assessment is to continually improve the quality of the course and the class experience to facilitate and encourage student learning and progress. Thus, if your assessment data show that in the aggregate, students are doing less well than you want them to on one outcome, it is important to change the way that issue is being taught or to offer additional focus on that area, or to rethink whether the outcome is appropriately defined for the purposes of the class. On the other hand, if students are learning as well or better than your set criteria, you may want to raise the bar and rewrite the goals to expect more of your students. These changes in your teaching or your evaluation of students may necessitate a change in how you assess your course in the future, which is why the assessment process is often described as circular. The data you collect informs changes in your teaching, which then causes shifts in how you assess, and the cycle continues.

One way of monitoring and summarizing your course-level assessment process is to create a written assessment report (see below) that can organize and present your data and findings from your assessment project. An additional benefit of a written assessment report is that it can be shared with your colleagues, department, and other stakeholders to report how students are learning in your class and to demonstrate student learning with evidence.

Preparing a Written Assessment Report

An assessment report is a summary of the assessment findings and activities that were conducted over a period of time, typically a one-year period. An assessment report cannot be fully created until after the data have been collected and interpreted and related back to the learning goals and outcomes. Assessment reports are often completed for a specific purpose, such as to share the success of a course and how it aligns with program-level assessment, etc. and to feed these results into larger levels of assessment. Assessment reports typically have the following components in addition to those for the assessment plan:

• Review and revise course goals and learning outcomes as needed to ensure that they are what you want to collect data on in the following steps.
• Evidence: observations, findings, and results - The evidence is a summary of the findings collected to evaluate the quality of learning for the relevant goal and/or associated outcome. For course-level evaluations, evidence will be aggregated across individual students. Both qualitative and quantitative information can be used.
  • For each goal and outcome, it is necessary to indicate the extent to which the minimum criteria, and criteria for excellence if established, are met.
• Use of evidence: Review and communication of findings - This use of evidence about student learning refers to how the information was actually evaluated, reviewed, and shared routinely according to the assessment plan. Assessment information can also be used in other review and planning activities beyond a formal plan, such as unit program review and strategic planning. Such information could be included in a report.
• Use of evidence: Changes made as a result of the findings - This use of evidence about student learning refers to any actions taken or changes that were made as a result of the assessment review. If actions were taken or changes were made, the means by which the changes themselves will be assessed should be considered. Other use of assessment information could also be indicated in a report.
• Next steps or actions planned - Next steps represent a short-term plan about assessment activities aimed at improving the course and facilitating student learning, as well as continuing the iterative assessment cycle. Steps might include action plans that result from collected evidence about student learning, continued implementation or refinement of the larger plan, or other relevant expected activities.
• Reaffirm or revise course goals and learning outcomes if it is determined that the assessment methods were not able to appropriately assess whether they have been achieved.
• Repeat the process.

To strengthen the assessment process, plans and reports should incorporate best practices to make the assessment strategy most useful in improving student learning. These components for assessment reports are suggestions based on frequently included basic requirements. However, assessment reports for your courses, in your department, or in your college, may have more specific instructions and requirements that should be followed. These are only recommendations of components to include and should not be considered to supersede other instructions.