Departmental Review

Assessment Resources

ASSESSMENT RESOURCES

National Centers or Organizations

American Association for Higher Education

The AAHE is a central resource for higher education information. Its Assessment Forum is a national network supporting higher education stakeholders involved in assessment. This forum helps campuses, programs, and individuals to plan, implement, and share assessment results by publishing, networking, and sponsoring an annual national conference.

Educational Resources Information Center Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation (ERIC/AE)

ERIC Clearinghouse is one of the largest bibliographic databases on education and the social sciences in the world. The ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation seeks to provide 1) balanced information concerning educational assessment and 2) resources to encourage responsible test use. This site includes a Test Locator that searches different databases for test and research instruments, and a Full-Text Library of full-text books, reports, journal articles, newsletter articles and papers on the Internet that address educational measurement, evaluation and learning theory.

Higher Education Research Institute

The Higher Education Research Institute is the home of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), the nation's oldest longitudinal study of higher education in the United States. Different surveys located at the HERI include:
Freshman Survey
College Student Survey

National Postsecondary Education Cooperative

Established by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 1994, NPEC's mission is "to identify and communicate on-going and emerging issues germane to postsecondary education, and to promote the quality, comparability and utility of postsecondary data and information that support policy development, implementation, and evaluation." The Cooperative is composed of individuals representing all levels of postsecondary education including public and independent institutions, statewide governing and coordinating agencies, federal government and national associations. Dozens of publications and reports from many different program and survey areas are available for downloading (.pdf files). Useful files include a sourcebook on assessment methods and a July 2000 report on student outcomes case studies at several universities.

Science Resource Studies (subsection of National Science Foundation)

The Science Resources Studies (SRS) fulfills the legislative mandate of the National Science Foundation Act to "provide a central clearinghouse for the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data on scientific and engineering resources." SRS designs, supports, and directs surveys and a variety of other data collections and research projects. The site includes SRS publications and data, and links to other data sources related to the sciences.

WebCaspar

A National Science Foundation database,WebCaspar is a "virtual bookshelf of statistics on academic science and engineering." The database includes statistical data focusing on U.S. colleges and universities and their science and engineering resources. At this site, one must register to use the data.

These are sites of some assessment offices that contain helpful information, including bibliographies, reports, assessment suggestions and links to other universities' assessement pages.

California State University--Fresno
Illinois State University
North Carolina State University
Southern Illinois University--Edwardsville

The universities listed below have webpages that include assessment plans and reports for their departments, programs, and schools. The different formats and methods of assessment may be useful in designing proposals and assessment plans.

Boise State University
California State System
University of Central Arkansas
University of Illinois--Urbana/Champaign

Lists of Methods

University of Colorado--Boulder

This link includes a list that summarizes and gives brief examples of the assessment methods used by academic departments and programs at University of Colorado at Boulder.

Seton Hall University

This link includes a list that summarizes and gives brief examples of the assessment methods used by academic departments and programs at Seton Hall.

Portfolios

Kalamazoo College Portfolio

The "K" Portfolio is an electronic document that students develop throughout their four years at Kalamazoo College. It is a graduation requirement with the purpose of uniting students' classroom, internship, extracurricular, and overseas or off-campus experiences into one document.

Southern Illinois University--Edwardsville Portfolio

The SIUE Portfolio is completed by student volunteers in each entering class who keep their syllabi, papers, exams, and a personal study log in a portfolio. As these students progress through their school career, their portfolios provide the assessment office with data on how the expectations placed upon students change over four years and how students progress in their writing from the first year to the final year.

Techniques and Instruments

Classroom Assessment Techniques

This site at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville highlights several different types of assessment faculty can use when evaluating how well students are learning course materials.

Student Affairs-related Outcomes Instruments

This site includes descriptions of dozens of instruments used in student affairs-related assessments, including career outcomes, emotional and physical health, campus and social involvement, and safisfaction with the university experience. Each description includes information on where to obtain data and surveys.

Assessment for People Who Don't Have Enough Time to Do Assessment (Concordia College)

Assessment of Student Learning (Indiana University)

Ten-Step Plan for Developing an Assessment Plan (St. Cloud State University)

Writing Assessable Program Goals (St. Cloud State University)

Busy Chairperson's Guide to Assessment (Southeast Missouri State University)

Assessment Manual (Texas A&M University)

Outcomes Assessment Manual (University of Wisconsin--Madison)

Assessment Resource Guide (Western Carolina University)

9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning (AAHE)