Planning and Assessment in Higher Education E-Book

Michael F. Middaugh

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

Seitenzahl: 291

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

PLANNING AND ASSESSMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION Demonstrating Institutional Effectiveness In this era of increasing pressure on higher education institutions for accountability, Planning and Assessment in Higher Education is an essential resource for college and university leaders and staff charged with the task of providing evidence of institutional effectiveness. Michael F. Middaugh, a noted expert in the field, shows how colleges and universities can successfully measure student learning and institutional effectiveness and use these results to create more efficient communications with both internal and external constituencies as well as promote institutional effectiveness to support student learning. "How can the assessment of institutional effectiveness be used to provide a solid foundation for planning? Middaugh has crafted a comprehensive, practical guide that also explains what accrediting agencies really want and need to know about these topics." --Elizabeth H. Sibolski, executive vice president, Middle States Commission on Higher Education "Only Michael Middaugh, the unquestioned national leader in this field, could write such a lucid overview of how to make institutional assessment and planning really work as a tool rather than as a tedious requirement. He helped invent and shape the focus of national assessment rubrics and now offers his insights into how to make them work for your institution." --John C. Cavanaugh, chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education "Middaugh provides extremely helpful and practical guidance and insights on how colleges and universities can use assessment tools and frameworks to improve both academic programs and administrative operations. A valuable and timely book for all higher education leaders." --James P. Honan, senior lecturer on education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Series

Title Page

Copyright

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Chapter 1: The National Context for Assessment

Introduction: The Good Old Days

The Gathering Storm

Enter the Federal Government

Institutional Responses to Calls for Greater Transparency

Chapter 2: Starting at the Beginning: Mission-Driven Planning and Assessment

Institutional Mission

Linking Planning and Assessment: The University of Delaware

Summary

Chapter 3: Assessing Institutional Effectiveness: Student Issues

Developing Usable Measures of Student Engagement and Satisfaction

Measuring Student Engagement

Measuring Student Satisfaction

Summary

Chapter 4: A Core Issue in Institutional Effectiveness: Developing Sensible Measures of Student Learning

What Are Accreditors Looking For?

Strategies for Measuring Student Learning

A Word About Assessment in Graduate Education

Communicating the Results of Assessment of Student Learning

Summary

Chapter 5: Maximizing Human and Fiscal Resources in Support of the Teaching/Learning Process

Developing Appropriate Analytical Metrics

Extending the Budget Support Metrics

Chapter 6: A Comparative Context for Examining Data on Teaching Loads and Instructional Costs

Extending the Discussion of Costs

A More Complete Picture of Faculty Productivity

Benchmarking Out-of-Classroom Faculty Activity

Some Final Thoughts on Delaware Study Benchmarking

Chapter 7: Measuring Administrative Effectiveness

It's in the Numbers

A Bit More on Institutional Finances

Other Strategies for Assessing Administrative Effectiveness

Conclusions

Chapter 8: Communicating Assessment Results

Other Communication Strategies

Summary

Chapter 9: Where Do We Go From Here?

Student Engagement and Satisfaction

Measuring Student Learning

Costs and Productivity

Some Final Words

Appendix A: University of Delaware College Selection Survey

Part One: General Information

Part Two: College Selection

Part Three: College-University Characteristics

Part Four: Information Sources

Appendix B: University of Delaware 2007 Study of Instruction Costs and Productivity, by Academic Discipline

Definitions of Terms

Part A: Instructional Workload—Fall 2006 Semester

Part B: Cost and Productivity Information

References

Web-Based References

Resources for Further Reading

Teaching Productivity and Instructional Costs

Effective Communication of Data and Information

Index

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Middaugh, Michael F., 1945-

Planning and assessment in higher education : demonstrating institutional effectiveness / Michael F. Middaugh.—1st ed.

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

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-40090-6

1. Education, Higher—Planning. 2. Universities and colleges—Administration. 3. Education, Higher—Standards. 4. Education, Higher—Economic aspects 5. Educational evaluation. 6. Educational accountability. I. Title.

LB2341.M4437 2010

378.1′07—dc22

2009025592

First Edition

Preface

This book is the culmination of experiences acquired during over twenty-five years in the field of institutional research and, most recently, seven years as a commissioner with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, one of six regional higher education accrediting bodies in the United States. During my quarter century in institutional research, I have had the good fortune to work for three institutions whose senior leadership valued institutional assessment as a tool for informing strategic planning. This was nowhere more true than at the University of Delaware, where I was given broad latitude in shaping analytical strategies to support a broad range of academic, student support, and budget planning activities. Because of my familiarity with the University of Delaware, especially the strategic planning challenges that it faced in the early 1990s, it offers a particularly rich example for illustrating the linkages between assessing and developing measures of institutional effectiveness and using that assessment information as the basis for strategic institutional decisions, especially with respect to allocation of human and fiscal resources. Consequently, I cite that institution throughout this book in illustrating principles related to assessing institutional effectiveness. That said, while the University of Delaware may be a primary illustrative venue, the underlying principles related to assessment are broadly portable across institutional boundaries to other colleges and universities, two-year and four-year alike. Examples from other institutions of this portability are also evident throughout the volume.

Over the past decade, assessment of institutional effectiveness has become a cornerstone for accrediting higher education institutions in the United States. External pressures—particularly from Congress, state legislatures, and parents, especially about escalating tuition rates—are forcing institutions to operate more transparently. That transparency is expected to focus on institutional outcomes, regarding both student learning and the extent to which an institution makes the most effective and efficient use of its human and fiscal resources in support of the teaching/learning process. Those external pressures and the full range of expected outcomes are documented in this volume.

Over the course of my career, higher education has witnessed a host of management strategies, each purporting to be the penultimate solution to our problems, only to be replaced by the next strategy du jour—zero-based budgeting (ZBB), total quality management (TQM), continuous quality improvement (CQI), and the list goes on. There are some who believe that the assessment movement will fall into that category. I do not share that belief. In my view, assessment has become an essential tool for demonstrating the ongoing effectiveness of colleges and universities to those public and private sources that fund us. But more important, assessment has become the primary tool for understanding and improving the ways in which students learn and for developing and enhancing those institutional structures and programs that support student learning. Accreditation agencies—both at the institutional and the programmatic level—are now operating in a “culture of evidence” that requires institutions to qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate that they are meeting student learning goals and effectively marshalling human and fiscal resources toward that end. And within that culture of evidence, institutions are explicitly required to demonstrate the use of systematic strategic planning, informed by a comprehensive program of assessment, to support teaching and learning. Because accreditation is a prerequisite to institutions receiving Title IV federal student aid, this culture of evidence is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

But rather than view assessment as an external requirement imposed by an accreditor or other entity, institutions should embrace the opportunity to measure student learning and institutional effectiveness as a vehicle for more effectively communicating how they are meeting their respective missions, to both internal and external constituencies. This book will focus on assessment as a language for describing institutional effectiveness, demonstrating that institutional planning is rooted in comprehensive and systematic information, and describing the outcomes of that planning activity.

Successful colleges and universities in the twenty-first century will be characterized by effective assessment and planning. This book is intended to contribute to and to celebrate that outcome. I have a young granddaughter, Jasmine, who is the light of my life and who will all too soon be of college age. I want her to attend an institution that demonstrably focuses on her learning and uses its resources to enhance student success. I hope that this book will contribute in some measure to creating such an environment for her.

Acknowledgments

The development of this book has been influenced by a number of individuals. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge my friend and colleague, David Hollowell, to whom I reported for over twenty years at the University of Delaware in his capacity as executive vice president and treasurer. David gave me the support and encouragement to be creative in assessments of institutional effectiveness. The Delaware Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity, which is described in this book, could never have become a reality were it not for David's emphasis on the importance of benchmarking information as a tool in effective strategic planning. I would also like to thank David Roselle, former president of the University of Delaware, and Daniel Rich, the former provost at Delaware, for their emphasis on the importance of assessment data in the planning process. And that emphasis is being continued under the stewardship of the current institutional leadership, President Patrick Harker, Executive Vice President and Treasurer Scott Douglass, and Provost Thomas Apple.

Two other individuals have played important roles in shaping my thinking with respect to planning and assessment. I first got to know Peter Burnham, president of Brookdale Community College in New Jersey, when I served on a task force that he was chairing in 2000 to revise the Middle States Commission on Higher Education accreditation standards. For the past three years, he has served as chair of that commission and I as his vice chair. His passion and commitment to the inextricable link between high-quality assessment and excellence in planning have been a source of inspiration. And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the work of my longtime friend and colleague, Jeffrey Seybert, director of Institutional Research and Planning at Johnson County Community College in Kansas. Jeff has long been at the forefront of assessment of student learning outcomes, and much of the discussion in this book has been shaped by numerous conversations with him.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the most important person in my life, my wife, Margaret, who has lovingly supported and encouraged me in my professional endeavors over the years. As some form of retirement is not too far in the offing, I look forward to spending more time with her.

Michael F. MiddaughWilmington, DelawareNovember 2009

About the Author

Michael F. Middaugh is associate provost for institutional effectiveness at the University of Delaware. In that capacity, he directs all analytical activity directed at assessing institutional effectiveness at the University. He has been at the University for over twenty years, with prior experience on two campuses of the State University of New York. For the past fifteen years he has directed the Delaware Study of Instructional Costs and Productivity, a national data-sharing consortium of over five hundred four-year colleges and universities. Middaugh is a past president of the Society for College and University Planning as well as a past president of the Association for Institutional Research. He is a commissioner and vice chair of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, one of six regional accrediting agencies in the United States. He is the author of Understanding Faculty Productivity: Standards and Benchmarks for Colleges and Universities (Jossey-Bass, 2001), as well as numerous book chapters and articles on instructional costs and faculty productivity.

Middaugh holds a bachelor of science degree in biology from Fordham University, a master of arts in liberal studies degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and a doctor of education degree from the State University of New York at Albany.

Chapter 1

The National Context for Assessment

Introduction: The Good Old Days

This book's focus is the inextricable linkage between planning and assessment as characteristics of effective colleges and universities in the twenty-first century. Such a linkage has not always been emphasized or valued within higher education. During the period from immediately following World War II through the early to mid-1980s, higher education in the United States led what can only be referred to as a charmed existence. Veterans returning from the War flooded into colleges and universities in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and were followed by their offspring—the so-called post-war baby boom—in the 1960s and 1970s. Public college and university enrollments increased exponentially, and so did governmental support. Private colleges and universities shared in the growth as the result of governmentally supported student aid programs. The number of degree programs and disciplines at institutions grew rapidly in response to student demand. This did not require a great deal of careful planning—it was essentially a situation of “build it and they will come.” And as long as graduates were produced in those disciplines with knowledge and skills required by business, industry, and government, there were few questions as to how money was being spent. These were halcyon days for higher education.