Common misconceptions

1. Common misconceptions What is Often Misunderstood about Assessment Created by Michael Gos

2. Everything you know may be wrong • There are often misunderstandings about assessment programs. • While some of them are minor, others have serious consequences for the success of any assessment program. • Some misconceptions lead to strong resistance from persons vital to the assessment process. • Let’s take a look at a few of the more common ones. Created by Michael Gos

3. Misconceptions about Assessment at Lee College • We’ve been doing this for quite some time: While we have had some discussions and a few small-scale trials, this is the first time a full scale assessment program has been implemented at Lee College. • We’ve been through this before. Faculty did a lot of work and then the program was dropped. We never saw the results: Everyone involved in the academic mission of the college will be involved and see the results. More important, we’ll use those results to improve teaching. • We’re doing this for SACS and once our review is past, we can forget about it: While SACS does want to see the results of our assessment work, we are doing this for us, and for our students. It will allow us to be the best we can be. Created by Michael Gos

4. Misconceptions about Assessment at Lee College • Assessment programs are a way for the college to look at my teaching: While that is possible to do so under certain designs, that is not what we are doing. We are assessing programs, not classes. The only way the assessment can be of your work is if you teach every section of every course in the program. • This means a lot more work for faculty with no additional pay: There is certainly a significant amount of work involved in creating and implementing a program, but if faculty are careful in their selection of measuring instruments, that additional work can be kept to a minimum. Created by Michael Gos

5. Misconceptions about assessment at Lee college • The administration will dictate the method and we will be forced to follow their plan: Each division will lay out it’s own learning outcomes to test, choose the instruments used to test for them and determine the use to which the results will be put. Created by Michael Gos

6. Misconceptions about assessment in general • We can look at any artifact and decide if it is well done: That is not the case. In order to truly evaluate anything, we must have a set of criteria against which to measure it. Without clearly stated goals up front, we cannot do a valid assessment. • The assessment process ends with the analysis of the data and a finding (letter grade, goals met or not met, etc.): A good assessment always “closes the loop.” That is, an action is taken to better performance in the future. Created by Michael Gos

7. General Misconceptions about assessment • Once we make changes based on our findings, the assessment process is over: Assessment stages are recursive. We test, make changes, and then test again to see if the changes worked. Based on those findings, we make additional changes. Created by Michael Gos