1. Why Assessment Results Are Hard to Use (and what to do about it)

2. Hi…I’m the Assessment Director

3. The Theory

4. What Could Go Wrong?

5. Look familiar?

6. Assessment Design

7. Don’t outsource design (if you can help it)

8. Choosing an Achievement Scale Pick a scale that corresponds to the educational progress we expect to see. Example: 0 = Remedial work 1 = Fresh / Soph level work 2 = Jr / Sr level work 3 = What we expect of our graduates

9. Subjective measurements Use authentic data that already exists Sacrifices reliability for validity Create subjective ratings in context Sacrifices reliability for validity Assess what you observe, not just what you teach! Recovers some reliability For complex goals like general education: www.coker.edu/assessment

10. Survey Attitudes and Behaviors CIRP, BCSSE, Student satisfaction inventory Link student ID numbers to other indicators These can be easily and productively outsourced

11. Analysis and Reporting

12. Some Tools ANOVA Logistic Regression and ROC curves http://statpages.org/logistic.html Pivot tables

13. Longitudinal Analysis

15. Use data you already have Grades FAFSA, SAT, ACT items Demographic data ePortfolio statistics or work Library circulation statistics

16. Analysis: Example

17. You don’t have to average Measurement requires: Units Ability to aggregate What we actually do is estimation Without measurement we shouldn’t average

18. Averages

19. Proportions

20. Min / max

21. Using comparative scales

22. Confidence Intervals

23. Portfolio analysis: epic FAIL!

24. Multi-dimensional graphs

25. Analysis: Example

26. Proportions

27. Conclusions Design it yourself Use a sensible longitudinal scale Combine with other data Avoid averages

28. Last Requests? highered.blogspot.com