Monday, February 24, 2014

You're Doing an Assessment: Now What?

Assessment Methods” – Bresciani

I think Astin’s I-E-O model was extremely applicable when I was creating my evaluations. Astin talks about the importance of recognizing the inputs of the students as they enter college and then how the environment affects the student. When creating my evaluation, I had to remember that the conference was not only for students and staff here at Pacific but from institutions all over the western region. Some of these institutions were public, private, and 2-year, each having their own unique experience with LGBTQIA life on campus. This also made me think that when it came to student learning outcomes, I had to be a bit more broad knowing that students would take different things back to their campus or respond to sessions in different ways based on their experience prior to attending.

            When I decided to do a survey, it was because I thought it was the easiest to distribute to all participants and would have a great return rate because they would complete it before leaving the conference. While constructing my survey, it was hard to make sure that every learning outcome was being represented or that answers were corresponding to each. I found it easier to think of ways to relate to one or two but giving each a valid portion of the survey was tough. For some of the learning outcomes, I realized that open-ended questions would provide greater understanding than a Likert-scale question. The final part of my survey has the section where people can express any improvement they’d like to be made about the conference so that we are assuring that it is at its highest level and also provides them an opportunity for their individual voice to be heard, something that might not be as likely at their institution.

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