INSTITUTIONAL ASSESSMENT PLANNING

GOALS: As part of the funding provided by Arnold Ventures, College-in-3 has developed a student learning assessment initiative that has two primary goals. The first goal is to assist member institutions in developing robust assessment plans for their 3-year programs. This work is grounded in the understanding that each institution has its own way of conducting assessment, and already has certain assessment processes in place, and that different accreditors have different requirements.

We are assisting a subset of College-in-3 members that have already launched 3-year programs or plan to do so by fall 2025—11 “starter” institutions—to identify what, how, and when assessments for 3- year programs are designed. Major components of the assessment plan are: general education dual courses, program level learning outcome assessments, institutional assessments, post-graduation follow-up assessments, and distinctive assessments related to articulating the benefits of 3-year degree programs. Institutions will identify the place, timing, and methodology of the assessments. In addition, the assessment procedures such as data storage, data analysis, and data reporting are articulated.

The second goal is to help institutions to design their 3-year programs with the end of assessment in mind, identifying specific considerations that should be incorporated in the design process:

• How will program learning outcomes be assessed?
• How will course-level learning outcomes be assessed?
• Will this assessment plan be reviewed by university governance committees?
• How will the assessment results be used to evaluate the overall effectiveness of the program?
• How will the assessment results be used to improve curriculum, teaching, and student services?
• What process will be in place to monitor student persistence and completion?
• How will you follow up on program graduates?
• What additional measures of success may be used for this program? (Graduate or professional school acceptances, job placement, grants.)

 Methodology

This initiative is led by Carleen Vande Zande, in collaboration with the 11 College-in-3 member institutions that constitute the “starter group”.  Carleen meets monthly with the group and will also meet twice before December 2025 with the larger membership, as well as at the annual College-in-3 Convening to disseminate her work with the starter group.

The approach is a technical assistance and coaching model, designed to improve project outcomes related to completion of projects on time, on budget and to a high degree of success. Institution level coaching will result in enhanced project outcomes, and improved decision-making. The institutional teams will become familiar with various assessment formats as well as the critical steps in an assessment process.

Outputs

1.   An assessment template to guide institutions in structuring their assessment efforts
2.   Samples of assessment plans that will be posted on the College-on-3 website. 
3.   A few agreed-upon metrics that institutions will use to track the outcomes of their 3-year programs and use for program improvement. A preliminary list of these metrics include yield, time to degree, credits to degree, GPA, post- graduation employment, institutional metrics related to program costs.