Annual Outcomes Assessment

The purpose of annual assessment of learning outcomes is to determine how well a program is meeting its goal of enabling students to achieve the program’s learning outcomes—and to use the results to make changes to the curriculum and pedagogy in order to better support student learning. (It’s important to distinguish that goal from evaluating the performance of individual students or faculty members.)

Annual assessments of student learning occur at the program level: each program is asked to conduct assessment work each year. The results are disseminated within the program and used to make improvements. In the period when the program is going through its program review, the program is not expected to conduct new assessments, but rather to synthesize what was done, what was learned, and what changes were or will be implemented based on the accumulated annual assessment results.