How To Conduct a Graduate Program Assessment

Education is one of the most important wealth that a person can have. Thus, as the main sources of formal education, schools, colleges and universities must ensure that they provide their students the best-quality education. And one way to evaluate if they are indeed successful in achieving this goal is to assess student learning. It is therefore important that every school or university conducts a program assessment.

A program assessment is a formative evaluation that generally aims to review the quality and effectiveness of a particular program, encourage its improvement and align it with the school’s missions and vision. Every level of the educational system must undergo this process, but it is mostly recommended for huge educational institutions such as a university that offers graduate programs. A student, faculty member, alumna, administration person and etc are some of the possible sources of data for assessing a program. Nevertheless, schools are not the only ones responsible in conducting program assessment. Students, professors and administrators can do assessment on the respective programs that they are involved in.

Since programs vary, creating assessment software that is primarily designed to a specific program can be complicated.  We take a graduate program as a sample.  For its assessment, the process is usually composed of the following steps:

1. Develop a graduate program assessment plan. This process involves assessment research. At the beginning, the program’s mission must be stated and discussed. It must be clear and understandable for both the students and the professors. Based on this mission, the priority objectives and goals of the program must be determined and the criteria on what an effective program is must be explained. Courses in line with the stated goals must be subsequently designed, with the target outcomes clearly stated. The sources of data to determine the success of achieving the program’s outcome and the frequency on which they will be obtained should also be made clear in the plan.
2. Devise an assessment review process. This will involve assessment testing, wherein the methodology to be used in evaluating the effectiveness of a graduate program is laid out. It can include conducting surveys, focus group discussions, interviews and other necessary assessment processes.
3. Create an assessment review report. This report is the final product of the program assessment and includes summative evaluations. The paper should discuss the overview, mission and goals of the graduate program, as well as its scope and limitations. It should also include data collection process and the areas of assessment such as the faculty, students, indicators of teaching and learning effectiveness, etc. Based on the assessment results, areas for improvement should be identified and plans for responding to such needs must be indicated in here.

Program assessment should be conducted on a regular basis so that strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges can be identified in relation to the target outcomes and goals of the school. The continual improvement of existing programs must be given priority. Program assessment is inevitable to ensure that all faculty members are effective in their teaching and that students receive the best education possible.