Shifting the Focus

“Conditions Supporting a Culture of Assessment in Student Affairs Divisions at Small Colleges and Universities” – Seagraves and Dean

The article states, “Student learning became the focus of student affairs works in the 1990s, when the field was called up on to demonstrate its commitment to the academic mission of higher education” (310). It has also become one of, if not the main focus of the assessment projects that we are working on this semester. For my personal example, my projected student learning outcomes are specific to my project and can be used for other departments and programs on campus.

This study also is a good example of using criterion sampling for an assessment project. The criteria in the study was: (1) institutions having fewer than 5,000 students and (2) recent SACS accreditation. I have decided to use criterion sampling for my project as well. Knowing that all participants are attendees of the same conference is a good starting place. It also ensures that this commonality is a good starting place to assess is learning was achieved. Based on my criteria, I decided to have my evaluation that was handed out during the conference. I wanted to make sure that people would remember about the various aspects of the conference; some of the questions referred to the conference as being a "safe space" for participants and I wanted them to be in the physical space when they were filling out the evaluations.