Assessment

Assessment is the ongoing process of gathering information about a particular academic or administrative activity to determine if it is achieving its stated goals. If the goals are not being met, the information gathered is used to change the activity as needed. 

Bryn Mawr College's Mission was approved by the Board of Trustees in March 2019 and can be found here. Aligned with the College's mission is the plan for Excellence in Action, which outlines the vision of Bryn Mawr's undergraduate college and four priorities for undergraduate education.

1. Each Academic Department creates learning goals, and each Administrative Office creates institutional effectiveness goals that are aligned with the Mission of the College
2. From the goals, measurable objectives are created
3. Measurement tools are created to measure objectives
4. Data are collected
5. Data are analyzed with attention to
   1. Developing plans for changes to be made in the case that outcomes were unexpected
   2. If changes are to be made, identifying the impact on resources
6. Reassess

Learn about the Assessment Cycle

Departmental assessment has taken several forms over the past decade. Originally, departments would choose one impactful aspect of their curriculum and assess that aspects. Around six years ago, the College focused on writing across the curriculum and departments therefore focused assessment attention on writing. More recently departments have once again focused on one core aspect of their curriculum.

Currently, departments choose at least one of their learning goals to assess. Each academic department therefore creates learning goals for students who enroll in the departments' courses. These learning goals align with seven learning goals specified by the College. They may also align with the Modes of Inquiry based on curricular requirements.  The goals may also be informed by other aspects important to college as listed below.

The College learning goals state that at their time at Bryn Mawr, students will learn

1. writing skills
2. research skills
3. oral communication skills
4. the ability to understand and use quantitative tools
5. the ability to view a problem from multiple perspectives
6. critical thinking skills
7. problem-solving skills

In addition to this, there are four modes of inquiry based on curricular requirements

1. Scientific Investigation
2. Critical Interpretation
3. Cross-Cultural Comparison
4. Inquiry into the Past

Finally, other categories may inform departmental learning goals:

1. Digital competencies
2. Information literacy
3. Global literacy
4. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

After assessing their learning goals, Departments create a report on the assessment, which is reviewed by the Provost and stored in the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment.

Departments at Bryn Mawr regularly go through a process of external review.

Since 2010, the following departments and programs have conducted an external review:

• Africana Studies
• Athletics and Physical Education
• Classics (with Haverford)
• Comparative Literature (with Haverford)
• Dance (mini-review)
• Education (Bi-Co Program)
• Environmental Studies (mini-review with Haverford)
• French and Francophone Studies (with Haverford)
• International Studies (mini-review)
• Mathematics

Departments at Bryn Mawr are also committed to the priorities outlined in established in Excellence in Action. Senior staff have been guided by the priorities in setting annual and long-range administrative goals. Each member of the senior staff submits annual goals to the President and reports on progress towards the goals at the end of the fiscal year.  

In addition, the Administrative Offices under the leadership of members of senior staff are going through the process of creating institutional improvement goals which will be assessed annually similar to the learning goals assessed by academic departments.  Reports on these assessments will be housed in the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment.  

Additionally, some Administrative Offices under external reviews.  In the last five years, Health Professions Advising and the Office of Institutional Grants and Sponsored Research underwent external reviews. The Career & Civic Engagement Center grew, in part, out of an external review of the previous Career Advising Office.

The 2019-2020 Bryn Mawr Self-Study and the 2019-2020 Supplemental Report for reaccreditation by Middle States Commission on Higher Education can be accessed by anyone on campus who is logged in to Bryn Mawr.

The Education Effectiveness Assessment Handbook provides a clear, comprehensive understanding of the College’s educational effectiveness assessment system. The handbook covers all aspects of the system, from its origin and purpose to the nuts and bolts of data collection, to the application of assessment results in curricular and resource decision-making. The Handbook also contains an Assessment Activity Calendar and a FAQ document that addresses common questions. 

The Educational Effectiveness Assessment Handbook

The survey tool that is the least intrusive to both faculty and students is the Embedded Assignment. For students, embedded assignments are an expected part of a course experience. They range from projects, presentations, essays, exercises, and tests. These course assignments can be used for assessment as long as they are tied to one or more of the learning goals set out for the course, the department, or the College.

In assessment, there is often an admonition not to use course grades as an assessment tool. End of term grades reflect a student's entire experience in the course and are usually not tied to specific learning goals. Although valuable in providing feedback for students on how they did in a specific course, course grades are not as valuable in providing feedback to the instructor as to whether a specific goal is met.  

If, however, a specific test, or assignment, or even a specific question on a test, is tied to a learning goal, then the grade on that test or assignment can be used as direct evidence that a learning goal has been met. If the grade reflects both the learning goal and the quality of the writing, then those two aspects must be separated from each other before they can be used as an assessment tool. 

Portfolio assessments are collections of work, often student work, designed to elicit examples of student learning outcomes. Each item in the portfolio is selected to represent a specific aspect of what the student was required to learn. They are often collected over a length of time and can show growth in learning as well as mastery of specfic outcomes.

A rubric is a scoring guide used for the purpose of assessing assignments. A rubric defines in writing what an evaluator expects in order to get a particular mark on an assignment. Along with the written account of what is expected, a good rubric will also list the criteria that will be assessed. For example, if a person is writing a paper that will be assessed by a rubric, the rubric will let the writer know if they will be scored on content knowledge, writing skills, effective communication, or all three. The levels of quality of each of the criteria will also be delineated in a good rubric. Whether these levels are written out as words (e.g., Excellent, Needs Improvement, Fail) or as numbers (e.g., a score from 1 to 3), what it takes to achieve each level will be apparent from the definition of each level of the criteria.  

Rubrics are typically presented as a grid with the levels of quality across the top and the criteria being assessed down the side. In each cell a definition is presented to allow the person scoring the rubric to know what constitutes a specific level of quality in a specific criterion. 

Here is an example of a rubric from the Tri-College Teagle Foundation Systematic Improvement grant (2009-2014).

Surveys are widely used assessment tools that gather indirect evidence for the achievement of learning or institutional effectiveness goals. The College regularly uses surveys to gather indirect evidence of institutional goals.

• The Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment Confidentiality Policy
• Survey Schedule

The following is a list of assessment resources.

• AAC&U (American Association of Colleges and Universities): Value Rubric
• National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment: Opening Doors to Faculty Involvement in Assessment
• American Association for Higher Education: 9 Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning
• Middle States Commission on Higher Education Standard V: Educational Effectiveness Assessment
• National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment: Assessment, Accountability, and Improvement: Revisiting the Tension
• National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment: Students Bring a Fresh Perspective to Institutional Assessment through Capstone Projects in Strategic Communication