• The Graduate School
  • Graduate Programs
  • Our Mission
  • The Staff
  • News
• Admissions
  • How to Apply
  • When to Apply
  • Current or Former UNF Students
  • International Applicants
  • Non-Degree Seeking Students
  • Costs and Financial Aid
• Graduate Students
  • *Online Orientation*
  • Program Directors
  • Graduate Catalog
  • Course Schedules
  • Graduate Student Organization (GSO)
  • Thesis and Dissertation Policies
  • Graduate Assistants
  • Graduate Educational Development Series
• Faculty Information
  • Graduate Council
  • Resources for Faculty

Assessment Planning and GLOs

The ideal:

• Program Mission Statement

One thing we're sure of is that learning outcomes statements need to cohere closely with the mission statements of their programs. In those cases where programs within a unit differ significantly from one another, as judged by the members of that unit and as evidenced by significant differences among the learning outcomes of those programs (in particular in terms of content knowledge), each program (undergrad, grad, whatever) needs its own distinct mission statement. But in those cases where all the programs in a unit share, to some significant (perhaps even total) degree, common learning outcomes, all those programs may share a common mission statement.

• 4-6 Expected Learning Outcomes

Borrowing from Paula Krist of UCF: Paula asks her faculty to think "SMART" when writing student learning outcomes:

Specific — clear and definite terms describing expected abilities, knowledge, values, attitudes and performance
Measurable — it is feasible to get the data; data are accurate and reliable; it can be assessed in more than one way
Aggressive and Attainable — the outcome has the potential to move the program or department forward
Results-oriented — describe what standards are expected from students
Time-bound — describe a specified time period for accomplishing the outcome

Two principles that must be addressed: (1) graduate programs must incorporate graduate instruction and resources that foster independent learning, student-directed scholarship, and/or appropriate professional experiences and (2) graduate programs must be progressively more advanced in academic content than undergraduate programs. These two principles are perhaps better thought of as arching over the entire program, but it is important that a program's Mission Statement and Expected Learning Outcomes captured the two.

To evidence that our students are involved in independent learning, we might provide examples of policies (from the Graduate Catalog, program handbooks, and syllabi) that either require or provide an opportunity for students to engage in independent research projects, directed independent studies, portfolios, theses, and dissertations. We might also provide evidence of students publishing articles and presenting at conferences.

• Assessment Plan/Approach/Strategy

For those graduate programs that do not have discipline-specific accreditation, I recommend an "embedded assessment approach" focused on whatever capstone products the program generates (such as thesis, dissertations, comprehensive examinations, and portfolios). The faculty members charged with guiding and reviewing these capstone products can develop rubrics based on their program's GLO statements. These rubrics can be completed by these faculty members — for instance, a thesis committee — at the time of the products' review and evaluation.

For those graduate programs lacking both discipline-specific accreditation and capstone products, I recommend that these programs work with the university's assessment officer(s) on the development of an assessment strategy that meets their needs and that the program faculty find meaningful and useful.

• Improvement Plans

No assessment program does what it should without resulting in the construction and implementation of improvement plans directed at achieving greater (deeper, more lasting, more transferable, more critical, more widely connected, etc.) student learning.