Assessment

The University Assessment Advisory Committee (UAAC) is charged with overseeing West Chester University’s annual Assurance of Student Learning (ASL) initiative, a process whereby the quality of all academic program assessment plans is evaluated using the WCU Institutional ASL Rubric that addresses the following core elements:

1. Outcomes: Program outcomes must be direct and specific. Outcomes should be clearly stated using action verbs what students will be able to know, do, value through the completion of the assessment measure.
2. Measures: There must be a minimum of 2 program level measures for each outcome. One of the measures must be a direct measure (sample of actual student work) while the other measure can be indirect (a report of perceived student learning).
3. Curriculum Map: All programs must have a curriculum map to demonstrate where their program level outcomes are first introduced (i.e., discussed), practiced (evaluated at the course level) and ultimately assessed at the program level.
4. Rationale: Appropriate rationale must be provided for each outcome measure. Rationale can include the course, description of measure, and/or level of student being assessed.
5. Criterion: Benchmark levels (criterion) must be set for all outcome measures (i.e., 80% of students will score "x" or higher on assessment measure). Having criterion will enable programs to understand whether they were successful in the achievement of the outcome measure.
6. Results: Programs must annually report results of several program outcome measures and include some level of data analysis.
7. Action Plan: All results should have an appropriate action plan to demonstrate what if anything can be improved and/or documented as a program strength because of the assessment cycle.

The components of each plan are evaluated by University Assessment Advisory Committee (UAAC) members and the program’s respective Associate Dean for the ASL Annual Review. Plan components are awarded initial scores according to the rubric. Initial scores, accompanied by qualitative feedback from UAAC members and Associate Deans, are provided to program Assessment Coordinators via the Nuventive platform. The presentation of initial scores is followed by a six-week revision period where programs can address any weaknesses. Finally, UAAC members rescore all revised plan components. and publish the results via heat maps. The heat maps demonstrate the progress of the ASL initiative specific to each college, not specific student learning outcomes, and are updated annually.