Patterns of Organizing for Student Assessment

The following three organizational patterns provide useful and somewhat distinct institution-wide models for organizing an institution’s student assessment effort. The experience of Iowa State University, Wake Forest University, and Northwest University provide examples of these models. They represent a large, complex university, a moderately sized university, and a smaller primarily teaching institution.

The three models are a directed decentralization model, a loosely coordinated model, and a centrally guided model.

Directed Decentralization
Iowa State University provides an example of a somewhat deliberately designed directed decentralization model of organizing for student assessment, which distributes various roles and activities related to student assessment at different levels of the institution (see Diagram 1). While there is a commitment of the institution’s central administration to the need for student assessment, the role of the executive officers in this model is quite limited. They have supported the importance of student assessment, played an important external role in attempting to influence the Iowa State Board of Regents’ requirements for student assessment to assure they serve institutional and not just reporting purposes (i.e., making them more program oriented to reflect ISU’s diverse schools and colleges), provided central support for accreditation reviews, and provided some institution-wide support for data collection on some student assessment measures.

The second tier of institution-wide activity is under the Provost or chief academic affairs officer’s office. This provides developmental assistance related to student assessment for the various schools and colleges. The Vice Provost for Undergraduate Programs, who oversees an

Diagram 1. Model of a Directed Decentralization Student Assessment Effort.

office of Student Outcomes Assessment, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Assistant Vice-Provost who stimulates interest in programs to promote assessment by helping departments develop their strategies, consulting with faculty and administrators about assessment issues and techniques, making presentations to faculty groups, and reporting to the Regents. Institution-wide assessment efforts are directed at this level. Also institution-wide efforts to provide training in student assessment and links among various colleges engaged in student assessment are promoted and supported here. However, design of, implementation of, and support for student assessment is largely housed in the associate dean’s offices of the various schools and colleges. These are linked closely to each school’s educational goals and purposes, the requirements of their specialized professional accrediting agencies, and the state level requirements for student assessment reports by program.

Finally, the primary core of student assessment activity is carried out by the various schools and colleges who decide what student assessment data that are relevant to their own educational purposes, professional accreditation requirements and state mandated reports for student assessment by program area. They direct the collection and analysis of student assessment data for their college. The engagement of each school and college varies according to its own needs and priorities.

This decentralized distribution of organizational and administrative support for student assessment seems appropriate for large, loosely structured institutions with highly differentiated academic units. It allows the institution to address external pressures for student assessment, provides an array of mid-level support efforts and engages faculty and academic administrators at the school and college level in meaningful student assessment. The weakness, of course, is that not all schools and colleges are highly committed to or involved with student assessment.

Loosely Coordinated
Wake Forest University provides an example of a moderate to large private institution that coordinates and integrates its student assessment activity with a well-developed set of institutional and academic management processes (see Diagram 2). Each management process serves a different function in promoting institutional change and improvement, but each draws on student assessment data in its deliberations and shares its results with the other processes. A brief synopsis reflects this pattern. WFU’s executive officers have developed and are committed to a periodic and systematic strategic planning process (every four or five years). WFU’s strategic planning efforts address significant

Diagram 2. Model of a Loosely Coordinated Student Assessment Effort.

institution-wide problems or challenges. They draw on special student assessment reports from the director of institutional research as well as information from its other academic management processes: an annual institutional evaluation activity and a well developed program review process.

The institution’s program review process requires all academic and administrative units to undergo intensive periodic reviews (ca. every five years). These reviews include unit self-reviews and in academic units the collection of special data on student performance relevant to the unit. Institution-wide student assessment data regularly collected by the director of institutional research are analyzed and provided for cross unit comparisons. Most importantly, a university-wide faculty academic review committee reviews them. The academic vice-president and deans take the results of these reviews seriously and work with the department chairs to improve in needed areas. Important decisions affecting the direction or resources of a department are often made based upon these results.

The institutional evaluation process is an annual one that considers an array of institutional information collected by the director of institutional research including student assessment data, which selects different issues or areas to focus on each year and often identifies areas which become the focus for strategic planning. The committee has broad faculty representation and takes its critical function seriously – reporting its results to the whole institution.

Under-girding these strategic, program review, and evaluation processes is a well-established institutional research office. This office regularly collects, analyzes and reports on a broad array of university issues but provides special support for student assessment data, assists programs in collecting special information for their reviews, provides administrative coordination for the program review process and serves as a liaison to the institutional strategic planning and evaluation processes.

This model is a useful one for a moderate sized institution, which has developed a coherent management approach emphasizing regular processes, wide involvement, and a data-based approach to decision making. It requires continuous commitment of key academic leaders to design effective institutional and academic management processes. In addition, it benefits from a sophisticated institutional research office that can provide both student assessment leadership and respected assistance in coordination of sensitive institutional processes like strategic planning, program review, and institutional evaluation.

Centrally Guided
Northwest Missouri State University provides an example of a small to moderate sized institution which has a centrally guided, organizing model in which student assessment is an integral part of an institution’s overriding institutional and academic management philosophy and approach to institutional improvement (see Diagram 3). NMSU’s president and central administration have adopted a total quality approach to institutional management. In one sense, this is similar to Wake Forest’s coordinated model, which relies on coordination of a series of institutional and academic management processes. However, NMSU’s model is driven by a more explicit focus on quality improvement, uses a set of more centrally designed processes drawn from a specific institutional management approach (TQM) and administers the various management processes more tightly.

NMSU’s centrally guided model begins with a strong commitment to the principals of quality improvement as reflected in the Baldrige model and has made them the institution’s primary performance focus in state and national competitions. In 1997 they won the statewide Missouri Quality Award for all types of organizations. They also compete annually for the educational Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award on the national level.

In order to accomplish this they have incorporated three university-wide leadership teams and designed a tightly linked set of academic management processes. The leadership teams include the Baldrige Category Council, the Strategic Planning Council, and the President’s Cabinet. The management processes include a Seven Step Planning Process, an annual program budget review, a centralized institutional data collection, and a reporting process featuring KQIs (key quality indicators) for all levels of academic management.

Diagram 3. Model of a Centrally Guided Student Assessment Effort.

These groups and processes are linked in a three phase planning process.
Phase I, Review and Analysis, focuses on the review of the institution’s foundational statements, an environmental scan analysis, and an evaluation of current Strategic Initiative (SI) plans. Phase I also serves as an analysis of overall organizational performance. This is done primarily by the president’s cabinet each year.

Phase II, Initiative and Identification, begins with Strategic Initiative proposals that are based on the outcomes of Phase I and the evaluation of past Strategic Initiative plans. The Strategic Planning Council develops Strategic Initiative proposals and presents them to the Presidents Cabinet, which ultimately decides which Strategic Initiatives will be pursued. A specific cabinet member is given primary responsibility for each approved strategic initiative.

Phase III, Action Planning and Development, continues the process during which cross-functional teams are developed which use the Seven Step Planning Process to develop action plans to support major objectives. These objectives serve as a focus for developing Key Quality Indicators (KQI). The KQIs serve as a set of indices that are reported to administrators responsible for various academic and administrative units and to those responsible for Strategic Initiatives. They are continually updated.

The Baldrige Category Council is responsible for assisting academic and administrative units to understand the concepts associated with the framework of the Seven Step Planning Process and for setting the agenda for the Presidents Cabinet on self-study, analysis of results data, and review of feedback from assessments. It also oversees preparation of the institution’s reports on its quality performance and applications to the external quality competitions. Completion of Phase III occurs when Cabinet members report on the deployment process for each Strategic Initiative, including the action plans, goals, resource requirements, measures, current status, and long-term performance objectives. A final approval for the Strategic Initiatives is then given and action plans are formalized.

Student assessment data, centrally collected, are a key resource in NMSU’s total quality approach to institutional management. The Office of Assessment, Information, and Analysis has a comprehensive set of student assessment data, which it collects (along with a great deal of institutional data). It is responsible for a variety of reports and studies using student assessment data. It also builds KQIs and prepares reports that include student assessment for an institution where the primary focus of quality improvement is on student performance and which makes student assessment central to the broader institutional management philosophy and approach.