QTA Committee Accomplishments 2020/21

“The effectiveness of an institution rests upon the contribution that each of the institution’s programs and services makes toward achieving the goals of the institution as a whole.” (Middle States Commission on Higher Education)

QTA continues its contribution to that end through the following accomplishments:

Continue to pilot assessment tools designed for foundation core goals and monitor the assessment implementation, results and recommendations for continuous improvement.

• QTA supported ARP in the first campus-wide assessment of one of the new Core Education foundations, critical & ethical thinking. Faculty assessed 1,499 students across all three schools in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. The assessment coincided with the implementation of the Core Education model in all programs and demonstrated the commitment of the College to developing and substantiating essential skills across all curriculums.
• QTA committee members worked with Joshua Hill, department head for communication & literature, to create a common rubric for written communication. In late 2019-20, Joshua created an interdisciplinary task force, which met periodically throughout 2020-21. Joshua reported back twice to the QTA on the work the task force had completed, which included an initial draft of a rubric that could be applied across programs. Joshua will revise the rubric and reach out to disciplinary ambassadors in Summer 2021, setting up meetings with 2-3 departments in Fall 2021 to advance the work. Joshua also discussed possible training needs, which QTA will coordinate with Joshua in 2021-22.     
• Faculty participated in the second pilot for the collaboration foundation administered by QTA. Results from the feedback on the proposed rubric and assessment process will be reviewed by QTA in order to plan the next phase of the pilot.
• QTA finalized the 2019-20 Core Report. This included the final assessments of information literacy and computing literacy from the previous Core Curriculum. Recommendations for information literacy were to continue the Library’s initial instruction via an online instruction and assessment module embedded into English 111 courses and to identify criteria in the new Core Education model foundations of critical and ethical thinking and written communication.
  Computing literacy has been assumed into the technological literacy foundation.
• QTA assisted ARP with the assessment of quantitative thinking by working with school deans to identify the courses in which post-testing would occur and then communicating with selected faculty about the process. Since the involvement of program faculty, the response rate for the post-test grew dramatically from 13 student respondents in both 2018 and 2019 to 509 respondents in Spring 2021. To date, ARP has data from 709 students through pre/post-test analysis. While the complete results will be compiled and reported on its three-year cycle in 2021-22, initial data analysis indicates significant improvement in skills.

Review and revise the academic assessment report template and core report format to promote and streamline quality assessment documentation and usefulness of the reports.

• The committee decided to delay the process of revising the academic assessment report template until the College completed the self-study process in anticipation of possible suggestions arising from the self-study work. The review work will start in 2021-22.
• A draft of the new core report format was incorporated into the 2019-20 Core Report and was used to report on the pilot of the assessment for the critical and ethical thinking foundation. The 2020-21 year will be the first full reporting on the Core Education model. The committee will review the formatting to improve the format for the new core assessments, if necessary.

Collaborate with administrative units and academic leaders as they continue to advance the assessment practices and documentation in their work area.

• Co-chairs provided feedback on both academic and administrative annual assessment reports to the Provost and administrative unit leaders. Also, they worked with the school deans on a one-on-one basis to provide guidance on strategies to improve reporting assessment activities as well as sharing information on documenting “closing the loop” activities.

Offer assessment-related professional development for internal stakeholders.

• Co-chairs provided three virtual training sessions for faculty selected for the campus-wide critical thinking assessment for the Core Education model. Co-chairs updated a training video for review and for instruction for faculty not able to attend a live virtual session.
• QTA was represented at assessment presentations designed for new faculty and program review participants, including a co-chair presentation, “Assessment Anxiety,” that covered the different levels of assessment activities (course, program, core).

Support the work of the Self-Study Steering Committee and Work Groups as they collect evidence that the College meets and/or exceeds the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) Standards of Accreditation and Requirements of Affiliation.

• Co-chairs identified numerous sources of documentation to work groups to provide documentation of assessment processes, practices, and application of results for improvement and linkage between assessment and planning/budgeting.