Connecting The Dots In Assessment: From Course Student Learning Objectives To Educational Program Outcomes To Abet Assessment

Abstract

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Connecting the Dots in Assessment: From Course Student Learning Objectives to Educational Program Outcomes to ABET Assessment I. Introduction The success of any institution of learning depends greatly on the students’ engagement in their own education. Increased learning can be easily linked with increased engagement [1]. Increased engagement can be achieved in various ways, such as by associating students’ interests and goals to class delivery, by encouraging students to work together, or by enhancing the student-professor relationship. Methods like these abound in the literature [2, 3, 4]. One method for verifying whether student learning has increased is monitoring the measurements of course learning objectives. The latter is the problem addressed in this paper. A method is proposed by which course learning objectives are assessed and further mapped into program specific educational outcomes, which in turn can help into quantifying assessment criteria set by accreditation boards and/or organizations. In this work we address specifically the needs of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) [5]. Graphically, this could be represented as follows: Course Student Program Learning Educational Objectives Outcomes Discipline Accreditation Criteria Note that this paper concentrates in describing the method to go from course learning objectives all the way to discipline accreditation criteria. The final arrow is, of course, a key issue in assessment as the loop must be closed for assessment to really be useful. The method presented in this paper provides a systematic way to measure and assess the achievement of course specific student learning objectives within the context of the educational program outcomes. Moreover, the paper includes the automation of measurable outcomes for program assessment, by connecting the outcomes to the course learning objectives. The method quantifies the contribution of each course towards assessing the achievement of the program educational outcomes. These outcomes are further connected to standardized assessment criteria provided by accreditation boards. A case study will be presented for the B.S. in Computer

Topics & Concepts