The paper examines varieties of program assessment in institutions of higher education and proposes a procedure to implement systematic assessment of program outcomes. Presented in a question-and-answer format, the paper first addresses common faculty concerns about formal assessment in sections titled, "Why Not Use GPA (Grade Point Average)?" and…

Recommendations of a task force, directed to study ways to upgrade teacher preparation programs to make the course of study more rigorous and effective, became mandatory for constituent institutions once they were adopted by the Board of Governors and the General Assembly of a southeastern state. This provided an opportunity to study the process…

The criteria used for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award can provide community colleges with a strategic tool for college planning, management, assessment, and accreditation. The Criteria focus on two measurable objectives for institutional effectiveness: the delivery of educational value to current and future students through instruction…

Sir Sandford Fleming College in Ontario, Canada is in the process of transforming itself from a teaching-based college to a student-centered organization. Faculty-led teams are a critical element in this transformation. With active support from its faculty union, Fleming has reduced its administrative ranks by one-third and created a host of teams…

Paine College, a four-year liberal arts institution in Augusta, Georgia, serving mostly black students recently completed an assessment and evaluation plan aimed at all units of the college. The plan was developed by members of the Committee on Institutional Effectiveness and Research over 12 months and focuses on the school's primary mission to…

Despite the fact that students over age 25 will soon comprise the majority in higher education, programming and resource allocation at many universities remain inadequate to meet adult needs. Institutions have also failed to invest in adult education research. At the same time, pressures for objective assessment of student learning in higher…

Problems, issues, and options related to the design and implementation phase of an academic program review process are considered. Directed toward administrators and other nonexpert participants in program review, the analysis is intended to assist in the decision of what kind of review is needed, how it might be carried out, and how results might…

This paper describes the activities and thoughts that went into the development and implementation of Brazosport College's institutional effectiveness (IE) model. The Community College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CCSEQ) was used to collect data on student satisfaction, and to provide constructs to use as outcome indicators for evaluating…

Responding to an accrediting agency mandate for assessment of student outcomes. Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana), a liberal arts college, developed and implemented an assessment plan. The process began with review of the institutional identity and early identification of the philosophy and principles to guide the process. A timetable was…

In July 1989, the members of Project Cooperation, 10 community colleges that had been invited to serve as demonstration sites for research on institutional effectiveness, were brought together for the second national colloquium on institutional effectiveness through outcomes measures. This report contains the presentations made at the colloquium…

The University of Phoenix has developed a comprehensive outcomes and impact assessment program to assess the effects of a university education on students, particularly adult students. The program is integrated with the existing process assessment systems. Process assessments, which the university refers to as the Academic Quality Management…

The Situational Factors Checklist was developed to describe variables which influence changes within a school and was used in two different school settings. In one application, it was used as a part of a case study method to study implementation of a microcomputer project, increasing faculty computer literacy, at different community colleges. The…