Implementing an Outcomes-Based Assessment Process in a Major Metropolitan Community College District

To propose recommendations for implementing an outcomes-based assessment program review in a California community college district, a grounded theory analysis was performed within the district. The findings generated were cross-referenced with findings from a multi-institutional case study analysis. A key finding from the cross-reference was the need for the leadership to clarify, across all levels of the organization, who the audience is for the data generated from the program review process; the indicators that each audience requires; and how that audience intends to use results generated from the process. These clarifications need to be accomplished prior to designing the outcomes-based assessment process.     

Challenges in the Implementation of Outcomes-Based Assessment Program Review in a California Community College District

The purpose of this study was to explore the manner in which a community college district planned to implement a systematic outcomes-based assessment program review process in order to have results inform institutional, district, and state policy discussions. Data derived from this grounded theory study indicated that there was not a shared conceptualization across institutional and district leadership for the identification of the audience that would use the data generated from the program review process. This finding is typical for many institutions, particularly as leadership desires to honor the individual uniqueness of each college.     

Relative Importance of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Core Competencies—A Case Study Survey

ABSTRACT: Nearly 90% of graduating seniors from the Food Science program at Purdue University gain employment in the food industry. Ensuring the program is meeting employers' needs is one mission of our curriculum committee with input from an Industrial Advisory Board (IAB). In light of the recent outcomes-based assessment requirements outlined by IFT, feedback from our IAB members regarding the relative importance of the core competencies was needed. The objective of this study was to survey the IAB members regarding relative importance of each of the 46 core competencies. Each competency was ranked using a Likert scale from 1 = not important to 5 = very important. Statistical analysis was conducted using the Mann-Whitney nonparametric test. Significant differences (P = 0.05) were found between several of the five content categories with Success Skills scoring highest (4.35 out of 5) on relative importance followed by Applied Food Science Knowledge (4.02 out of 5). Also, significant differences (P = 0.05) were found between competencies within each content category. Overall, the results suggest that the 46 core competencies should not be given the same instructional weight within a curriculum. One option for addressing the variation in importance could be to include some planned redundancy within the curriculum for those core competencies that were ranked the highest. In addition, part of the outcomes-based assessment process should include measures of the level of competency being achieved by graduates. By considering relative importance and competency achieved by graduates, important areas for improvement can be identified.     

Outcomes approaches to assessment: comparing non-government and government case-study schools in Western Australia

A key feature of recent curriculum reform in post-industrialised liberal economies has been the ascendancy of outcomes-based education policies. A 1995 review conducted in Western Australia (WA) recommended an outcomes-based approach, and in response, the Curriculum Framework (CF) was released in 1998. The same year, the WA State government mandated that all schools, both non-government and government, demonstrate compliance with the outcomes-based CF for Years K–10 by 2004. This article compares case-studies of non-government and government schools in analysing assessment and reporting issues in relation to the enactment of outcomes-based curriculum policy in the mid-2000s. With significantly different localised contexts, including different degrees of institutional autonomy and different approaches to curriculum, assessment and reporting, interesting contrasts and commonalities arose as each school engaged with the new policy. The research draws on a hybrid approach to policy analysis, incorporating both critical theory and post-structuralism with their different conceptualisations of power relationships. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine and analyse the views of participants at each site. Although there is no intention to generalise from individual case-studies, cross-case analysis reveals the emergence of meta-level themes – such as market choice, accountability and teacher professionalism – which are associated with ‘bigger picture’ issues of power and which may well provide insights for explorations of curriculum reform in other contexts.     

Writing in the Health Professions. Barbara A. Heifferon. New York: Longman, 2005. 315 pp.: Health and the Rhetoric of Medicine. Judy Z. Segal. Carbondale,IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. 217 pp

Technical writing instruction often operates in isolation from other components of students' communication education, partly as a consequence of assessment practices that lead to a narrow perspective. We argue for altering this isolation by moving writing instruction into a position of increased programmatic perspective, which may be attained through a means of assessment based on educational outcomes. Two models of technical writing instruction, centralized and diffused, are discussed, and we show how outcomes-based assessment provides for the change in perspective we seek.     

Students’ perceptions on the recognition of holistic competency achievement: A systematic mixed studies review

Holistic competency development is rarely certified in practice, and the assessment of holistic competencies remains an under-researched topic in the education literature. The primary aim of this systematic mixed studies review is to explore students’ perceptions on the recognition of holistic competencies. The review found very few studies that specifically focused on or directly addressed student perceptions in this area. Based on the analysis of 31 studies identified from existing literature, three themes were generated: evidence of overall achievement, assessment of holistic competencies in learning tasks, and challenges. The findings show that there is a lack of attention to holistic competency recognition and is a major gap in the current empirical literature. The current review highlights the need for a systematic process of documenting, reporting, and certifying holistic competency in higher education that takes into consideration the broader level of overall recognition and the assessment of competencies.     

Criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessments: compatibility and complementarity

The tension between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessment is examined in the context of curriculum planning and assessment in outcomes-based approaches to higher education. This paper argues the importance of a criterion-referenced assessment approach once an outcomes-based approach has been adopted. It further discusses the implementation of criterion-referenced assessment, considering to what extent the criteria and standards adopted are implicitly norm referenced. It introduces a compatible interpretation of criterion-referenced and norm-referenced assessments in higher education, and illustrates how their combined use can avoid grade inflation and also provide useful information to educators, employers and learners. Instead of seeing criterion referencing and norm referencing as a dichotomy, assessment in higher education benefits from their synthesis through a feedback loop that emphasises alignment between learning and assessment; such feedback and alignment are essential features of quality assurance and enhancement.     

Statistical Process Control and Cooperative Learning Structures: A Data Assessment and Improvement System Used in a San Jose State University Summer Bridge Programme

This paper will show how tools of statistical quality control were applied to a Summer Bridge Mathematics and Science programme at San Jose State University. These tools were used as assessment instruments to facilitate improvement in overall classroom performance. We shall show how quality control tools such as brainstorming, Pareto analysis and cause-and-effect analysis can be used to identify the ‘big’ problems and to analyze the cause(s) of the ‘big’ problems. Additionally, we shall show how control charts can be used effectively to monitor how the suggested corrective actions for causes of the ‘big’ problems are faring—or acting—on the outcomes-based process. Finally, we shall show how these control charts can be used to aid in monitoring and determining whether or not the ongoing outcomes-based process is stable. Once the ‘big’ problems have been eliminated and the ongoing process is in control, we shall further demonstrate how ‘monitored assessments’, cooperative learning activities and control charts can help to improve the overall process.     

Sense of audience and the adult writer: A study across competence levels

The purpose of this research was to investigate five audience-related constructs impacting on the written expression of adult writers who demonstrate varying degrees of literacy competence. Four specific groups of adult writers were targeted for this study, including 35 college-able writers demonstrating learning disabilities, 22 writers with learning disabilities attending a rehabilitation vocational training program, 35 remedial English college writers, and 35 normally achieving college writers. A primary trait scale was developed to investigate five major constructs identified in the literature as impacting on audience. These constructs included general characteristics, organization of text, analyzing/constructing the audience, construct differentiation of voice, and execution. The results of this research indicate that the population of adult writers demonstrating learning disabilities have difficulties with certain aspects of the writing process that may impact on the audience (reader). Implications for assessment and instruction are discussed.     

Reflection as a visible outcome for preservice teachers

As the standards movement progresses, efforts to encourage reflection by student teachers are often undermined. In this piece, we analyze exemplars of student teacher reflection coming from two very different approaches to outcomes-based teacher preparation. We use these exemplars to develop a rubric that illuminates the dimensions and qualities of reflection. This rubric helps clarify how meaningful reflection and an emphasis on learning are not incompatible if the focus is placed on the process of learning, rather than on outcomes alone. Finally, we contend that engagement in the process of reflection and reflection on the moral enterprise of teaching can be considered as important outcomes in their own right.     

The forum

In responding to David Kline's view that the role of mass communications was overemphasized to the neglect of formal and nonformal education, focus is on the position that education is a function of a properly constructed communications program for family planning and that the function is a channel for communication between the program personnel and the audience. The attempt is made to examine the conclusions reached by Kline, consider the conclusions in terms of the historical development of information and education activities in family planning, and to conclude with the presentation of a program framework for communication that identifies education as 1 of 2 channels to audiences. Kline is incorrect in maintaining that public information is overemphasized and in his suggestion that education has been neglected, but he is correct in his view that nonclinic education activities have been neglected. In trying to find more and better ways of communicating, attention must focus on the audience for family planning and how the audience learns. Information and education are the 2 channels for communication with the family planning audience. Information -- a 1-way process -- implies the use of the mass media. Education assumes the capacity for response. Both 1-way and 2-way messages assist in learning and decision-making; audiences learn more and make better decisions when many messages from many sources are provided.     

Accreditation in Hong Kong and international peer review

Increasingly, student outcomes assessment is being viewed as a component of comprehensive academic program review. The Hong Kong peer review process is typical of program review in the United Kingdom and Europe. In the second article in this issue, Ruth Green describes a typical U.S. program review process. —Editor.     

Senior secondary school assessment and standard-setting in Queensland,Australia: social context and paradigmatic change

ABSTRACT

This article draws on three assessment paradigms – psychometrics, outcomes-based and curriculum-based assessment – to discuss paradigmatic changes in senior school assessment and achievement standard-setting in Queensland, Australia, over the last 50 years. These include radical reforms in 1970 from university-controlled examinations to school-based assessments applying normative standard-setting, to subsequent reforms in 1978 introducing competence(curriculum)-based assessment and standards. From 2019, a new reform introduces a combination of school-based and external assessment with procedures for establishing standards still in progress.

Changes to Queensland assessment and standard-setting are discussed in terms of three preconditions for paradigm change – dissatisfaction, an alternative acceptable paradigm, and majority acceptance of change. Influence of paradigmatic origins of reformers is discussed. The amalgam of curriculum-based assessment and psychometric paradigms in the new Queensland system is considered in terms of theoretical compatibility and potential impact on the new standards.     

Wikis as Platforms for Authentic Assessment

Calls for accountability focus attention on assessment of student learning. Authentic assessment involves evaluating student learning as students perform real world tasks. We present a four-stage conceptual framework for authentic assessment. We argue first that evaluation is a process rather than a static one-time event. Second, authentic assessment involves evaluating experiential learning. Third, multiple evaluators assess student work, including self-assessment or review by a public audience. Finally, authentic assessments offer more learner choice. Wikis, as user-friendly web spaces that support easy web authoring for individuals or for collaborative groups, provide a platform for both student learning and authentic assessment.     

如何能提高城市电视台收视率的几点想法

提高收视率,增加创收,关系到地方电视台的生存。应该从提高节目的质量、栏目的科学化设置、电视节目的合理包装三个方面入手。在栏目设置中,要突出特色。控制数量。栏目播出时间安排上要遵循高峰回避原则;提高节目质量要从新闻从业人员的综合素质、节目策划力度、与观众的贴近性方面抓起;电视节目只有通过合理包装,方可吸引更多观众。     

WRITING AS DIALOGUE: THE COMPOSITION STUDENT AS WRITER,AUDIENCE, AND CRITIC

My Colleague, Dr. Eileen Landis‐Groom, and I are professors of English at Embry‐Riddle Aeronautical University, she on the Prescott, Arizona campus, and I on the Daytona Beach, Florida, campus. This past semester we began an experimental composition project that centers on the students’ exchanging papers and paper critiques between the two campuses. We believe that writing students engaged in the correspondence project have better realized particular instructional goals than they would have in the traditional closed‐classroom environment; student assessment of the project indicates that they, too, are confident that the method allowed them to improve their writing more than more traditional methods might have. The project has challenged their understanding of the audience‐purpose‐style relationship, demanded a much more concentrated effort in composing written evaluations of student writing, and allowed for a valuable exchange of place‐oriented information across a great geographic distance. The correspondence method of teaching writing insists on the nature of writing as dialogue by replacing the “general,” hypothetical audience with the concrete individual, combines key features of collaborative learning, peer review, and process orientation, and focuses on the critique as a composition in itself.     

Audience Activity and Reality Television: Identification,Online Activity,and Satisfaction

This study is an examination of audience activity in reality television. This genre was chosen because the program producers encourage activity with Web-based video footage, photos, program summaries and speculations, online discussions, and voting. Hypotheses predicted that audience viewing motives would be significant predictors of identification, online post-exposure activity, and satisfaction. In general, the study's hypotheses were supported. Identification was predicted by watching for social learning and cognitive and emotional involvement. Engaging in online activity after watching was predicted by elaboration and feeling negative emotion. Viewing satisfaction was predicted by viewing motive; cognitive and emotional involvement; and, surprisingly, less online activity after watching.     

Assessment revisited: a review of research in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education

A review of articles published in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, over the last eight years (2006–2013) on assessment in higher education, since the introduction of the Bologna process, is the subject of the paper. The first part discusses the key issue of assessment in higher education and the method used for selecting articles. The second part presents results according to the main emerging themes arising from data analysis: assessment methods, modes of assessment and assessment related to a given teaching and learning method. The paper concludes that the foci of the studies are aligned with assessment practices other than the written test, in accordance with a learner-oriented perspective. Although the implementation of the Bologna process has had different kinds of impact in different European countries, the review shows that the use and effects of a diversity of assessment methods in higher education have been investigated, particularly those pointing to the so-called alternative methods. Implications of the findings are discussed.