Development of a Graduate Program’s Assessment Plan
The Graduate School mandates that each program have both clearly articulated learning outcomes and that these be available to all students. An ideal place to publish these outcomes would be in the Graduate Student Handbook for each unit.
Four Points
What counts as evidence of success, with respect to graduate student learning outcomes, is the province of each graduate program’s faculty with oversight from the Graduate School. Program faculty exercise their authority by establishing learning goals, designing courses appropriate to achieving those goals, and assessing student achievement of those goals using methods appropriate to the discipline. With this in mind the Graduate School has identified four points you should consider as you develop a learning outcome assessment plan:
1. Beginning with the program’s missions statement, determine the broad objectives that define what it means to be an effective program.
2. Develop specific, measurable outcomes that your program seeks to achieve to meet the objectives.
3. Determine the data that should be collected to evaluate the program’s outcomes and what the sources of that data will be.
4. Determine how often the data will be collected, who will be in charge of collection, analysis, and reporting.