This highly detailed report presents the results of a survey of 47 higher education assessment administrators, relating their best practices and advice, and data on their program and technology use, budgets and expenditures, personnel policies, relations with faculty, testing policies and much more. study gives detailed data on size of assessment staff, assessment director’s salary, program budgets and much more.
The report also helps its readers to answer questions such as: how influential do assessment offices perceive themselves to be? How much support do they get from college/university administration? How are basic skills assessment done for new students? Who qualifies to skip basic courses? What percentage of students test out of the freshman English writing requirement? What is the role of the academic library, career services, information technology, academic advising and other departments in the college assessment effort? What kinds of assessment software does the college use and why? What is the current and expected impact of student performance on new teaching methods and educational technology such as the flipped classroom or use of self-paced interactive videos? The study also has many open-ended questions through which participants comment generally on best practices in college student assessment.
Just a few of the report’s many finding are that:
Nearly 45% of respondents felt that the college information technology department was involved or heavily involved in the student assessment effort.
30% of respondents were highly confident in the effectiveness of their school’s preparatory classes at their institutions.
Nearly 83% of private colleges in the sample have used the National Survey of Student Engagement in their assessment efforts.