Step 1: Define Intended Learning Outcomes of the Academic Program

 

For academic program assessment, Step 1 includes review of the program’s mission and goals, developing intended learning outcomes for the program, identifying which courses address the intended outcomes (course mapping), selecting specific outcomes for initial assessment, and developing a more comprehensive plan to assess all intended outcomes. Each of these elements is best accomplished through faculty collaboration

Program Mission Statement

Step 1 begins with a review of the program’s mission statement or the creation of a mission statement if none exists. In order to think about the outcomes that a program is meant to achieve, one needs to understand the purpose these outcomes are serving. Without a mission statement, faculty members in the program may have different ideas of the purpose of the program and therefore be unable to reach consensus on the intended learning outcomes for the program. Students in the program may have ideas about the purpose of a program that differ from the actual mission of the program. Clearly stating the mission of the program ensures that faculty members and students are working effectively toward the same purpose.

For example, why hold students to good problem-solving skills in physics unless there is a purpose that these skills are meant to serve? The BSU Physics department has answered that question with a mission focused on preparing students for graduate school, careers in industry, and teaching, in which problem solving is an essential skill.

The degree to which a mission statement has meaning among the faculty is related to achieving consensus in its development. Start by looking for mission statements in your professional organization and in similar programs across the country. Bring some examples to a faculty meeting for discussion. If the group does not reach a conclusion in a single meeting, ask for a couple of volunteers (consider asking the most vocal critics) to work outside the larger group and develop a working draft to be circulated by e-mail. Aim for the process to be completed in one meeting and some follow-up e-mail(s).

The links below demonstrate the wide range of formats and modes of expression for program mission statements. Some mission statements consist of a short sentence; some incorporate a list of goals; some are stated as a single purpose. Rather than adhere to a standardized format, mission statements should reflect the characteristics and preferences of the faculty in the program and teach the students what the program intends to accomplish. The importance of the mission statement lies in its ability to provide the program with a clear statement of purpose. Thus, examples that are long and detailed may be overly prescriptive, but those that are too brief may lack direction.

Sample Program Mission Statements

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Program Goals

Goals are broad statements reflecting the long-range program targets.  They state in broad terms what an academic program intends to accomplish (in terms of student outcomes) or to become over the next several years.  Goals provide the foundation for decisions about the nature, scope, and relative priorities of various activities in a program.

Success in any academic program depends, in part, on consensus on program goals, a clear understanding of what the program expects to accomplish and, more importantly, how the goals are addressed in the curriculum.  It is usually expected that the goals of a given academic program must be consistent with those of the college, and ultimately with the goals of the institution.  It is necessary to ensure that agreement is reached among faculty on the mission statement before developing program goals.

Getting started

The general process for writing goals should start with reflection about the program mission statement and discussion of what that program would look like and how it should operate in light of the mission.  Discussions should lead to a list of characteristics which may be related to improving student outcomes, maximizing employment rates, and minimizing time to degree.  These characteristics should then be used to generate a list of potential “goals” which could be prioritized. 

Using the Delphi technique to develop program goals

Conduct a panel discussion about program goals or outcomes using a facilitator.  Each member of the panel can be asked to identify and list criteria that they believe are important for program goals or outcomes.  Combine all criteria into one list and have each member anonymously rank the criteria as being very, somewhat or not important.  Tabulate the results and show them to the panel. Discuss the results and repeat the process until consensus is reached before writing the goal and outcome statements.

(Adapted from Harding, Dickerson and Kehoe, 2002; Palomba et. al., 2000; and Stassen, Doherty, and Poe, 2001; and Guidelines for Assessment, 1993)

Guidelines for writing program goals

Ø  Identify three or more goals that are important (i.e., strongly related to the mission).  

Ø  Goal statements should describe the expected performance of the student or specific behaviors expected from graduates of the program.

Ø  Don’t identify too many goals, particularly when first starting out.

Examples of program goals

a)      To gain knowledge of political methodology (Political Science, BA)

b)      To introduce students to mathematics as an important area of human thought (Mathematics, BA)

c)      Understand the nature and collection of evidence in the geological sciences (Geology, BS)

d)      To emphasize chemistry as fundamental to our global society (Chemistry, BS)

e)      To master fundamentals of biological science. (Biology, BS)

These are good examples of program goal statements that include a brief description of the expected actions of students of the program.

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Intended Learning Outcomes

Once faculty members articulate the mission of the program and formulate goals of the program, they need to focus on defining specific learning outcomes (SLO’s) for students in the major.  The outcome statements should be defined based on goal statements, which in turn should be aligned with the university’s mission.  Goals are broad statements, whereas learning outcomes are precise, specific and clear statements about the intended outcomes of a program. The following format shows how outcome statements can be derived from program goals.

 

Program Goals

Student Learning Outcomes

Outcome 1

Outcome 2

Outcome 3

Outcome 4

Outcome 5

Goal 1

✔

 

✔

✔

 

Goal 2

 

✔

✔

 

✔

Goal 3

✔

 

✔

 

✔

 

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) are specific statements that describe the required learning achievement that must be met on the way to attaining the degree and meeting the goals of the program.  They describe specific behaviors that a student of your program should demonstrate after having completed the program. 

Below are important questions to consider while defining program learning outcomes:

1.      What do we want students in our major to know?

2.      What do we want our students to be able to do?

3.      What values or attitudes (dispositions) do we want to instill in our students?

Multiple perspectives on learning are useful. In addition to faculty members, students in the major, colleagues from the discipline, alumni, or professionals/practitioners in the field might also be involved in the discussion about learning outcomes. Student learning outcomes should be developed by program faculty.

A common way to start the conversation about learning outcomes is to begin with a review of the mission statement and broad goals for the program and, if applicable, accreditation standards.  Faculty members might also review examples of learning outcomes published through their professional organizations or by departments with similar programs at other institutions.  This process should help generate a comprehensive list of ideas and suggestions for learning outcomes that can then be refined and narrowed.

Program learning outcomes should number at least between 3 and 5 for any given academic year. Specific learning outcome(s) may be assessed as often as faculty deem necessary.  Because assessment determines student achievement in each outcome, having too many outcomes almost assures that the assessment effort will be onerous. Learning outcomes should not consist of the sum total of all outcomes identified by all faculty members in the department; on the contrary, it should contain only the minimum list of outcomes that the faculty members consider to be essential and achievable.

Once the department has generated a comprehensive list of learning outcomes, the most challenging task can be deciding which outcomes are essential at the program level. One way to prioritize goals is to use a version of the Delphi technique. This process requires a neutral facilitator. Have each faculty member anonymously rank all the possible goals (1 = very important, 2 = somewhat important, 3 = not important).  Summarize the results from all faculty members and show the resulting rankings. Discuss any items where the rankings differed widely. Repeat the ranking process until the group approaches consensus around a minimum number of essential intended learning outcomes.

In developing student learning outcomes, it is recommended that faculty use the characteristics reflected in SMART method (from Drucker, 1954):

S    – Specific – says exactly what the learner will be able to do

M   – Measurable – can be observed by the end of the training session

A   – Attainable for the participants within scheduled time and specified conditions

R   – Relevant to the needs of the participant and the organization

T    – Time-framed - achievable by the end of the training session

Intended learning outcomes should focus on what students in the major should know and are capable of demonstrating upon completion of the program rather than on what faculty members teach. Remember that the list of learning outcomes can always be reviewed and revised as the need arises or as new developments occur in the discipline.

Finally, it is important to share the learning outcomes with students in the program. This helps students become aware of the direction of their education and be more engaged in the learning and assessment process.

 

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Course Mapping

In the process of developing a comprehensive list of learning outcomes, several BSC departments have used course mapping to obtain a sense of how current course offerings in the program cover different learning outcomes. In essence, a course map consists of a table with two axes, one pertaining to program learning outcomes, the other to courses in the major. The coverage of a learning outcome in each course is shown in the cells of the table such as this:

Program Learning Outcomes Course 1 Course 2 Course 3 Course 4 Course 5 Course 6 Course 7
Outcome 1 X X X X X X X
Outcome 2   X   X X    
Outcome 3 X   X X     X
Outcome 4           X  

Course mapping can provide a view of how individual courses are related to the program learning outcomes and can show the curricular emphasis given to each outcome. For example, Outcome 1 in the above table appears in seven courses and is therefore given greater emphasis than Outcomes 2 and 3.

A map can also identify redundancies or gaps in the program. The example above shows that only one course currently takes ownership of Outcome 4. This may be appropriate if the single course focuses intensely on the intended outcome. For example, an academic program might have development of skill in research as an intended learning outcome, and it could be that only one course directly addresses this skill. In reviewing a course map such as this one, faculty members will need to decide whether the outcome may, in fact, be addressed to a lesser extent in other courses (for example, research skills may not be taught directly in other courses, but they may be used by students across the program's curriculum). If this is not the case, faculty members will need to discuss whether having a single course address a high priority learning outcome is sufficient.

Initially, a course map can help facilitate faculty discussion about the extent to which the program currently addresses the list of learning outcomes. A course map, however, can go even further by displaying the degree to which a course emphasizes a specific outcome. In some cases, it may even be useful to show the number of hours devoted to each outcome in each course. In the case of outcomes that are developmental, the level of achievement that is expected in each course can also be indicated as low, medium, or high or other such descriptors. This would show how student achievement is expected to develop during their progress through the curriculum and where students are held accountable for mastering intended learning outcomes.

The following links provide examples of course maps developed for BSC academic programs:

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Selecting Outcomes for Initial Assessment

Initial assessments may focus on only one intended learning outcome. Limiting initial assessments in this way gives faculty members the opportunity to become comfortable with the skills that are necessary for every step of the assessment cycle. The particular learning outcome that is selected for initial assessment may be one that is of greatest interest to the program faculty, one that is most likely to demonstrate the success of the program in a given area, one that is most likely to identify an area where improvement is needed, or one that is easiest to measure.

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Developing a Comprehensive Assessment Plan

As faculty members become proficient at assessment, additional outcomes may be added for future rounds. Eventually all intended outcomes should be assessed, and a schedule can be established to ensure that this assessment occurs on a regular cycle.

A comprehensive assessment plan is essentially a calendar. It begins with a statement of intended learning outcomes, followed by a statement of how each outcome will be measured. The bulk of the assessment plan, then, is devoted to a schedule of when each assessment will occur and how frequently it will be repeated.

To create a comprehensive assessment plan, faculty members should begin with an inventory of assessments that are already conducted, either by the program itself or by the college. This inventory should include a statement of when the existing assessments naturally occur. Review of this inventory will identify the gaps in assessment, and it will show where data collection schedules do or do not dovetail well. Based on this review, faculty members can select the necessary assessments to address the remaining intended learning outcomes and can reschedule all assessments so that they occur in a meaningful and manageable order over time.

For program-level assessment, staff members from the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment are available as consultants in the development of comprehensive assessment plans. They can provide information about data that are routinely collected by the college which might be of use in the assessment, instruments that are in use across campus for similar purposes, research methods that are appropriate for a particular learning outcome, etc.

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Last Modified: October 19, 2012