Assessment Methods for Student Affairs E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 402

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Editor John Schuh and his fellow contributors, all experts in the field, detail the methodological aspects of conducting assessment projects specifically for the student affairs practitioner who is ready to conduct assessment projects, but is not quite sure how to manage their technical aspects. Using a variety of case studies and concrete examples to illustrate various assessment approaches, the authors lead the reader step-by-step through each phase of the assessment process with jargon-free, hands-on guidance.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series

List of Tables

Table of Figures

Table of Exhibits

Foreword

PREFACE

Purpose of This Book

Audience for This Book

Some Caveats

Overview of the Contents

About the Contributors

A Final Word

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Chapter 1 - ASSESSMENT AS AN ESSENTIAL DIMENSION OF CONTEMPORARY STUDENT ...

The Current Press for Accountability

Linking Assessment to Organizational Functions in Student Affairs

Getting Started in Assessment

Framing Questions

Some Illustrations of Assessment in Student Affairs

Conclusion

Chapter 2 - USING EXISTING DATABASES

Case Study

External Data

Internal Data

Conclusion

Chapter 3 - PLANNING FOR AND IMPLEMENTING DATA COLLECTION

Surveys and Questionnaires

Interviews——Individual and Group

Individual Interviews

Focus Groups Interviews

Observations

Document Review

Conclusion

Chapter 4 - SELECTING, SAMPLING, AND SOLICITING SUBJECTS

What Is Sampling and Why Is It Important?

Sampling Strategies for Focus Groups

Survey Fatigue

Conclusion

Chapter 5 - INSTRUMENTATION

Retention at Midwest State University

Creating a Plan

Selecting Quantitative or Qualitative Instruments

What Type of Quantitative Instrument Is Best

Identifying Published Instruments

Developing Local Instruments

Determining Quality for Quantitative Instruments

Challenges to Selecting and Developing Quantitative Instruments

Qualitative Approach

Qualitative Instruments

Challenges to Using Qualitative Instruments

Conclusion

Chapter 6 - DATA ANALYSIS

The Quantitative Path

What Do We Do with the Data?

What Kinds of Things Can We Do with Student Affairs Data?

An Example: Cross-Tabulation Analysis for Learning Communities and Student Retention

Statistical Software

Qualitative Data Analysis

Getting Started

Organizing and Preparing Qualitative Data

Read Through All the Data

Start Analysis with a Coding Process

Generating Descriptions of Participants, Setting, and Themes

Determine How Categories and Themes Will Be Represented

Interpreting and Making Meaning of the Data

Responding to the Assessment Objective(s) or Research Question(s)

Ensuring Goodness, Trustworthiness, and Rigor in the Findings

Conclusion

Chapter 7 - WRITING REPORTS AND CONDUCTING BRIEFINGS

Assessing Academic Advisor Effectiveness at Mid South University

Preparing the Written Report

Preparing and Presenting the Oral Report

Conclusion

Chapter 8 - ETHICS

A Conceptual Framework for Thinking About Ethics in Assessment

Informed Consent

Other Selected Issues Related to Ethics

Conclusion

Chapter 9 - USING A MIXED METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO ASSESSMENT

Alumni Development at Easternmost College: Background Information

Learning More About EMC Alumns: A Quantitative Study

Learning Still More About EMC Alumns: A Qualitative Study

Mixed Methodologies: Some Final Thoughts

Chapter 10 - LOOKING TO THE FUTURE OF ASSESSMENT

Increased Accountability

Increased Use of Institutional Databases

Increased Use of Other Databases such as the Integrated Post Secondary ...

Increased Use of Comparative Data and Data Exchanges

Increased Levels of Accountability Will Require More Time for Collecting and ...

Greater Use of Data in Decision Making

Greater Demand for Transparency

More Sophisticated Studies Will Be Conducted

More Mixed Methods Studies

Upgrading Skills Will Be a Growth Industry

More Use of Technology in Collecting Data

Human Subjects Scrutiny Will Continue to Increase

Students Will Suffer from Survey Overload and Fatigue

Conclusion

Appendix 1 - EXAMPLE OF A FOCUS GROUP PROTOCOL

Appendix 2 - USING MICROSOFT EXCEL TO DEVELOP A RANDOM SAMPLE AND A STRATIFIED ...

Appendix 3 - LISTING OF COMMONLY USED INSTRUMENTS, PURPOSE, AND INFORMATION COLLECTED

Appendix 4 - COMPUTER SYNTAX CODE FOR

Appendix 5 - FURTHER EXPLANATION OF

Appendix 6 - SAMPLE METHODS PARAGRAPH

Appendix 7 - INFORMED CONSENT CHECKLIST: BASIC AND ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS

Appendix 8 - CODES OF ETHICS OF RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS TO ...

Index

Table of Figures

Figure 3.1 Suggestions and Considerations for the Successful Interview

List of Tables

Table 2.1 IPEDS Information Categories

Table 3.1 Process and Outcomes

Table 3.2 Examples of Specific and General Questions

Table 3.3 When and When Not to Use a Focus Group Interview

Table 3.4 Role of the Observer

Table 5.1 Resources for Selecting Published Instruments

Table 6.1 Crosstabulation of Student Learning Community Participation with Whether Student Is Retained from First Fall to Second Fall Semester

Table 6.2 Chi-square Measures of Association Between Learning Community Participation and Undergraduate Student Retention

Table of Exhibits

Exhibit 4.1 Checklist for Developing a Sample

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schuh, John H.

Assessment methods for student affairs/John H. Schuh and associates.

p. cm.—(The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7879-8791-6 (cloth)

1. Student affairs services—United States—Evaluation. 2. Educational evaluation—Methodology. I. Title.

LB2342.9.S38 2009

378.1’97—dc22

2008027254

HB Printing

The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series

FOREWORD

When my colleague and friend John Schuh asked me to write a Foreword for this book, I had two reactions. The first was “We wrote a book on assessment just a couple of years ago; isn’t it too soon to write another?” Then (at John’s insistence) I did the math, and sure enough, our last book was about eight years ago, so another is definitely very timely and needed. My second reaction was “Is there that much new in the field of assessment in the last eight years to write another?” And once again, John was right. After reading the manuscript, I concluded that more than enough has been learned over the past eight years by both scholars and practitioners to justify an update.

John and his colleagues attempted to meet an almost impossible challenge. On the one hand, there must be enough of the “basics” of assessment in student affairs to inform those practitioners who may not know much about the topic. On the other hand, those practitioners with more knowledge and experience with assessment will want a book that “takes them to the next level” in developing and conducting assessments that inform policy and practice.

I believe this book successfully meets this challenge. For those with little or no familiarity with assessment, John and his colleagues have restated, extended, and updated basics of assessment, beginning with the most important question of all: “Why are we doing this assessment?” Other basics include the many different types of assessment, getting started, data collection, selecting/sampling/soliciting subjects, data analysis, and perhaps most important, communicating assessment results in ways that influence policy and practice.

But this book is not simply a badly needed review and update of assessment practices. It also includes many topics that deserve far greater attention than they have received in the past. For example, too often practitioners assume that assessments require collecting new data, while in fact there may be already existing local or nationally accessible data that could answer the assessment question under consideration. Moreover, practitioners sometimes assume that the methodology question is “either/or” while in fact a mixed methodology study may yield the most useful and useable results. Instrumentation is always a moving target, with new and more psychometrically sound instruments available. And the ethics of assessment are often overlooked, with sometimes negative consequences, particularly for students. All of these and many other topics previously neglected in the literature are highlighted, discussed and explained in this book.

As the authors of this book correctly point out, the assessment “movement” has come a long way since the early 1990s, when the whole notion of the importance of assessment was questioned, the tools to conduct assessments were less sophisticated and accessible, and many student affairs practitioners were naïve about or intimidated by the prospect of “doing” assessment. Thanks to John Schuh and his colleagues, this book is an excellent “next step” in the continuing effort to make assessment a necessary and routine part of informing, influencing, and framing student affairs policy and practice.

Lee Upcraft

PREFACE

In 1976 while I was working as assistant director of housing at Arizona State University, the department received a notice from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) announcing that a workshop on the ecosystems approach to environmental assessment was going to be held in Phoenix. Representatives from WICHE member institutions were invited to attend this workshop at no cost. It was to be led by Dr. Ursula Delworth, a WICHE staff person. Since the topic was interesting, I organized a team from ASU to attend. The only obligation we had to fulfill was to try to field test the model the next academic year. We agreed to do that and attended the workshop.

That experience was my introduction to assessment in student affairs. The footnote to the experience was that we did field test the model during the next two academic years, and then I moved on to Indiana University, where we applied the model each of the next nine academic years. I also used it several times in my days as associate vice president at Wichita State.

In the early 1990s I had an idea that a New Directions for Student Services sourcebook might be written on assessment in student affairs. I approached Peggy Barr, one of the editors at the time, about the project. She referred me to Gale Erlandson, the editor for books on higher education at Jossey-Bass, who had been in communication with Lee Upcraft about doing a book on assessment in student affairs. Gale then brought us together and asked that we consider collaborating on a book on assessment in student affairs. We agreed to undertake the project, and that led to our first book on assessment, (Upcraft & Schuh, 1996). A few years later she asked us to prepare a companion volume, (Schuh & Upcraft, 2001). In the intervening years Lee and I wrote several articles and conducted a number of workshops on assessment practice at professional conferences, as well for specific campuses.