Educational Research and Evaluation at Alverno College
In 1976, the college formally established an office of educational research and evaluation that would investigate a series of questions at the behest of the faculty, with special attention to linking the outcomes of college to the curriculum,establishing the validity of assessment techniques and the assessment process, and demonstrating the link between college-learned abilities and alumnae performance in the world of work, personal life, service, and citizenship.
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Our initial concerns were for assessment activities that operated at the level of individual students and were integral to their learning. (For additional information, go to Student Assessment-as-Learning)
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Alongside this use, assessment can also be an instructor's tool for improving learning or a policy tool for planning and improvement. We have gradually developed a program of assessments that operates at the levels of individual student, program, curriculum, and institution.
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In this context, educational research and evaluation are part of a dynamic learning system based on the educational principles and values underlying Alverno's mission and supported by structures that ensure coherence and continuing improvement. One such structure is the Research and Evaluation Council, made up of senior faculty, staff, and administrators. However, responsibility for review of program, curriculum, and institution-wide effectiveness lies with departments faculty and staff across this institution.
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The learning centered, outcome-oriented focus of the institution means that information from curriculum, program, and institution-wide assessment and inquiry has a central purpose: to enhance student learning, development, and performance of abilities. At the program or institutional level, information indirectly benefits individual students. The expectation is that findings are interpreted and used for student benefits. The broader picture of student achievement that emerges is multifaceted and collectively understood, a backdrop against which faculty and staff can interpret individual and group patterns in student growth.
We conceptualize inquiry to mean standing in, standing beside, and standing aside, and to sometimes do all three simultaneously. We use the term "stand" here to give an active tone to a reflective activity that seeks continuous and expanded benefits for students: from the immediacy of the course-based experience of teaching and learning, to the collaborative and formative dimensions of activities for course and program development, to stepping away from the delivery of program or curriculum in order to take a summative, evaluative approach.
Implementing learning outcomes studies in this context has involved a variety of approaches, strategies, and processes. These include: (a) evaluation of general education and the major field; (b) longitudinal analysis of changes in student and alumnae abilities, learning, and development as a result of curriculum, who changes, who benefits and why; studying student and alumna perspectives on learning and causal attributions to curriculum; studying graduates' career advancement; (c) studying the performance of alumnae abilities in work, personal, and civic roles; and of outstanding professionals who are not Alverno graduates; (d) validating the ability-based performance assessment process (student assessment-as-learning).
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