1. Faculty Incentives for Assessment:
Sarah Gordon, Ph.D.
Oklahoma State University
Elizabeth E. Smith, Ph.D.
The University of Tulsa
André Foisy 
Virginia Tech 
Faculty Incentives for Assessment:
Current Literature and Preliminary Survey Results
Background about how we got together and why we are studying this topic

2. Session Outcomes Participants should be able to:
Identify different approaches to recognize faculty for participating in assessment work;
Articulate how strategies discussed in the session could be incorporated into assessment practices at their own institution;
Reflect upon strategies to recognize faculty for assessment work that will be most effective on their campuses.

3. Faculty Recognition and Reward Survey
FIRST
Discussion about your experiences
THEN
Current literature regarding faculty engagement in
assessment
FINALLY
Preliminary survey results
To view this presentation, first, turn up your volume and second, launch the self-running slide show.
Faculty Recognition and Reward Survey

4. What do we mean by “assessment work?”
Collecting, analyzing, and using student learning data to make program- or institution-level recommendations or decisions
For more information, go to or us at
For the purposes of our survey and this paper, we are NOT talking about classroom assessment.

5. How does your institution recognize and/or reward faculty for assessment work?

6. Current literature
What does the literature say about improving faculty engagement?

7. Why? NILOA 2014 Provost’s survey
(Kuh, Jankowski, Ikenberry, & Kinzie, 2014)
Priority Needs:
More faculty using results
More faculty involved in assessment
Next Provost’s survey coming out in the fall
Question: why do Provost’s want more faculty involvement in assessment and use of results?
-- They are closest to the students!
Why?

8. “Because faculty involvement remains critical, institutions need to find ways to recognize and reward faculty who do this work so as to increase buy-in and encourage more instructors and staff to take part in professional development and assessment efforts.”
(Kuh, Jankowski, Ikenberry, & Kinzie, 2014, p. 33)
How do we get more faculty involved in assessment work?
How?

9. Current Literature
Consideration as service for tenure and/or promotion
(Secret, Leisey, Laning, Polich, & Shaub, 2011)
Financial compensation
(McCullough, 2007)
Course release or relief from other duties
(Bresciani, 2011; Ewell, Paulson, & Kinzie, 2011)
Institutions are trying and using these methods to promote faculty engagement…but it doesn’t really connect faculty to what motivates them.
Designating faculty as assessment experts – scholars/fellows/champions
(Ewell, Paulson, & Kinzie, 2011; Baker, 2012)

10. Moving towards greater faculty engagement
How can we connect assessment work to the work in which faculty are invested?
Teaching and learning
(Bresciani, 2011)
Their academic disciplines
(MacDonald, Williams, Lazowski, Horst, Barron, 2014)
Think about why faculty joined academia. Connect assessment work to those areas.
Scholarship/Research/Inquiry
(Hutchings, 2010; Breswciani, 2011; Cain & Hutchings, 2015; Smith, 2017)

11. Background and Preliminary Results
For more information, go to or us at

12. Participants 63 responses 31 institutions from across the US
40% public
60% private
12% land-grant
For more information, go to or us at

13. For more information, go to www. duarte
For more information, go to or us at
Number of Respondents

14. For more information, go to www. duarte
For more information, go to or us at
Senior Administrators (president, vice-president, dean, assistant/associate dean, director)
Other (staff, faculty at non-tenured institutions, managers, general administrator)

15. Does your institution have professional staff dedicated to assessment?
Number of
Respondents
For more information, go to or us at

16. Does your institution have faculty dedicated to assessment efforts (e
Does your institution have faculty dedicated to assessment efforts (e.g., faculty program assessment coordinators or faculty fellows)?
For more information, go to or us at

17. Department or College Level
Who is doing assessment work at the program level?
Program Level
Department or College Level
University Level
So, as the level of assessment goes up (program to department.college to university), involvement of faculty goes down.
Does this seem to be true at your institution?

18. How are faculty compensated for assessment work?
For more information, go to or us at

19. How are faculty involved in assessment work trained?
For more information, go to or us at

20. Are there rewards, recognitions, and/or incentives for faculty who participate in assessment activities?
For more information, go to or us at

21. Publishing/presenting counts towards RPT Public recognition Stipends
Common forms of recognition, rewards, and incentives for faculty who participate in assessment activities:
Publishing/presenting counts towards RPT
Public recognition
Stipends
Provost’s Program Assessment Award
Mini-grants for assessment
Certificates
To improve ratings for annual evaluations
For more information, go to or us at

22. How are faculty included in the process of planning assessment or analyzing/reviewing data?
Responsibility
Faculty are represented on college and institution committees / assessment advisory boards Faculty administrators are responsible for general education assessment.
Some departments have assessment committees.
Faculty design rubrics.
Faculty collect data/artifacts to be entered in assessment/accreditation software.
Faculty serve as assessment coordinators and/or chairs of assessment committees.

23. How are faculty included in the process of planning assessment or analyzing/reviewing data? [Continued]
Responsibility [Continued]
Assessment office recruits faculty to be involved in gen ed data collection and analysis and engages faculty and administrator groups to interpret assessment results.
Plans and data review are discussed at faculty meetings and/or retreats.
Faculty Senate has a General Education and Core Curriculum Subcommittee.
Communication
Assessment is mentioned during “Faculty Development Days” at the beginning and end of semesters
We hold open meetings and solicit faculty opinions, insights and concerns.

24. How is assessment work used in annual performance appraisals and/or in RPT documents?
Listed as service or creative activity
Mentioned in letters of support for tenure
Not at all / unsure (common response)
Some faculty have found a way to publish with/about their assessment work
Used assessment to count as evidence for the quality of teaching
Assessment activity is a part of faculty appraisals (non-tenure institution)
For more information, go to or us at

25. “…I do not believe assessment carries any weight in P&T, even though administration first said it would/should. They have positioned it more and more as service, and service is barely counted compared to teaching and publishing.”
The problem at many institutions is that connecting it to service is not meaningful to faculty because they are not rewarded for service.

26. What surprises you about these poll results?
How do the results compare with experiences at your institutions?
Turn to a neighbor and talk for 2 minutes about each question. Will give 4 minutes for partner discussions then report out to the group.

27. What is something you learned as a result of this presentation that you can take back and implement at your institution?
Take the survey if you want to contribute to our study!
Take the survey at: OR
Scan the QR code to go directly to the survey

28. References
Baker, G. R. (2012). Texas A&M International University: A culture of assessment INTEGRATEd.
Champaign, IL: The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. Retrieved from
Bresciani, M. J. (2011). Identifying barriers in implementing outcomes-based assessment program
review: A grounded theory analysis. Research and Practice in Assessment, 6, 5-16.
Cain, T. R., & Hutchings, P. (2015). Faculty and students: assessment at the intersection of teaching and
learning. In G. Kuh, S. Ikenberry, N. Jankowski, T. Cain, P. Ewell, P. Hutchings, & J. Kinzie (Eds.),
Using evidence of student learning to improve higher education (pp ). San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Ewell, P., Paulson,K., & Kinzie, J. (2011). Down and in: Assessment practices at the program level.
Hutchings, P. (2010). Opening doors to faculty involvement in assessment. Champaign, IL: The National
Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. Retrieved from
Kuh, G. D., Jankowski, N., Ikenberry, S. O., Kinzie, J. (2014). Knowing what students know and can do:
The current state of student learning outcomes assessment in U.S. colleges and universities.
Retrieved from
McCullough, C. (2007). Factors that influence the effectiveness of assessment plans in the improvement and
sustainment phase in colleges and universities. (Doctoral dissertation). West Virginia University,
Morgantown, West Virginia. Retrieved from
MacDonald, S. K., Williams, L. M., Lazowski, R. A., Horst, S. J., & Barron, K. E. (2014). Faculty attitudes
toward general education assessment: A qualitative study about their motivation. Research and
Practice in Assessment, 9,
Secret, M., Leisey, M., Lanning, S., Polich, S., & Shaub, J. (2011). Faculty perceptions of the scholarship
of teaching and learning: Definition, activity level and merit considerations at one university. Journal
of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 11(3), 1-20.
Smith, E. E. (2017). Using the inquiry process to promote faculty engagement in assessment.  Intersection, 3(1).
15-22.
For more information, go to or us at