Evaluating Published Assessment Instruments: What You Need to Know

Choosing a Published Instrument to Assess Student Learning

With acronyms like MAPP, CAAP, C-BASE, CLA, NSSE, iSkills, it’s hard to keep track of the latest in published instruments to assess student learning. And with so many standardized assessment tools available, how do you know the best one for your school?

When it comes to evaluating published instruments for student assessment, it’s all about the questions. In this case, the questions we’re referring to are not the ones on the test, although they need to be examined as well, but the questions you ask yourself and the questions you ask of the instrument publishers.

Presented by Linda Suskie, vice president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, this seminar teaches you what questions you need to ask to determine whether published instruments should be part of your assessment program, and if so, which ones.

The foundation of successful student assessment is having clear goals and learning outcomes with specific strategies to achieve those goals. In this seminar, Suskie discusses many of the published instruments available for measuring general education competencies as well as some of the subject-specific tests. The important thing to remember is there is no one instrument that will match the goals of every higher education institution so you have to do your homework to find the best one for you.

Here’s just some of what you will learn by watching this seminar:

The difference between published and local instruments.
The relative advantages and disadvantages of published and locally-developed assessment tools.
The key features of some of today’s most popular published tests and surveys.
Sources of further information on published instruments, and ways to interpret and critically analyze that information.
The essential questions that must be addressed as you plan the administration of an assessment program.
Effective ways to get students to take the tests seriously.
Strategies for acting on the results.
The appropriate role of published instruments in your assessment program.

Any assessment decision, particularly one with far-reaching effects like deciding which published instrument to go with, is a sensitive topic full of potential landmines. Before you begin, it’s important to involve faculty in the search and selection process.

Who will benefit from this seminar:

Faculty
Faculty Development Personnel
Academic Affairs Personnel
Academic Administrators
Department Chairs
Academic Deans
Continuing/Extension Education Personnel

If you have any questions contact Customer Service at 800-433-0499 or (608) 246-3590 or email us at support@facultyfocus.com.

audio Online Seminar

Recorded on 12/4/2008
Length: 90 Minutes

Pricing:

CD: $189
CD + Campus Access License: $389
Transcript: $99
CD + Transcript: $288 $239

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Your Presenter:

Linda Suskie

Linda is an internationally recognized speaker, writer, workshop facilitator, and consultant on a broad variety of higher education assessment topics. Her latest book is the second edition of Assessment of Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide (Jossey-Bass). Among her other publications are Assessment to Promote Deep Learning (Stylus) and Questionnaire Survey Research: What Works (Association for Institutional Research). She is a Vice President at the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accreditor of colleges and universities in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.