Program Level Assessment

Outcomes: linking course and curriculum 

Faculty exercise discretion in designing their courses, and it can be helpful to ‘map’ the connections between course learning outcomes and program-level outcomes.  Typically the course outcomes are nested within program level outcomes, which may in turn be nested within broad ‘core competencies’, which are recognized at a campus level.

  *See UCSD Competency Framework.
**See 2016 AHA History Discipline Core.

More Resources:

• Engaged Teaching Hub’s template for designing a course syllabus.
• Faculty Focus on crafting clear outcomes to drive course design.

Every approved program at UC San Diego has published learning outcomes. These outcomes have been defined by the faculty that deliver the program, and they are paired with indicators (measures) that have also been selected by the faculty to assess whether the program is effectively supporting students to meet those learning goals. 

Program learning outcomes should be specific enough to describe the knowledge and skills developed within the discipline, but broad enough to encompass the range of learning that occurs across the variety of courses in the curriculum. Many programs opt to organize their learning outcomes according to ‘core competencies’, and there are multiple frameworks available. Professional associations may also publish learning outcomes for their disciplines. See sample outcomes from the American Historical Association and the National Communication Association.

A curriculum map is a tool to track how specific skills and competencies are developed through the curriculum. A simple map lists required courses in the curriculum as rows in a spreadsheet with columns for broad learning outcomes.  Then each cell is tagged for the level of mastery developed for that outcome in that course, usually on a scale, for example, introduced, reinforced, applied (or similar). A sample map might look like:

This map will change over time as new courses are introduced or retired, and as curricula are restructured. The map itself is an important planning tool, and the process of mapping can be deeply informative.  By engaging in a collaborative mapping process, faculty within the program have an opportunity to evaluate how the program components cohere and to identify or strengthen the pathways for students as they advance through the curriculum. 

An assessment proposal is a short document (between 2-5 pages), comparable in many ways to a research proposal.  The assessment proposal asks a question about student learning and proposes a plan to answer that question. A simple question might ask, “do students achieve outcome 1 in course 20?” A more informative question might ask about student mastery in particular sequences (e.g., a methods or theory sequence), about participation and success in capstones, service learning, or independent research, or about differences in outcomes across groups (for example, students entering from high school versus transfers or first generation versus continuing generation college students). 

A well-structured assessment is an important tool for identifying structural inequities in the program and a lever for introducing change. The results from any assessment should be actionable: future actions by the department should depend on the findings from the assessment.  Thus a well-designed assessment plan might include:

• An articulation of the assessment question, including the outcome under consideration
• A description of the methods that will be used to ask and answer the question (including the population included in the study and any survey instruments, rubrics, or other tools to be used)
• A description of the implementation plan for data collection and analysis (including who will be conducting the analysis, how data will be accessed, managed and stored, who will review the results)
• A description of anticipated patterns of results 
• A discussion of why the results would matter and potential actions that might be taken in response to the findings

Depending on the content of the proposal, certain supporting information might strengthen planning. These can be included as appendices or linked references. 

• All proposals should reference published learning outcomes and an up-to-date curriculum map.
• If the proposal references a specific course, course-level outcomes (or learning objectives) should be included as an attachment (for example, as a syllabus).

It may be helpful to work through this Assessment Project Planning Guide as a preliminary step before drafting your proposal.   If you are convening a workgroup to undertake assessment, you might also use this Assessment Workgroup Guide to formalize workgroup roles, expectations, and timelines. 

An assessment report summarizes the findings from the assessment with a special focus on how the results were used to review or revise the curriculum: 

• An articulation of the assessment question, including the outcome under consideration
• A description of the methods that were used to ask and answer the question, with sufficient detail for another unit to undertake a similar project
• A description of the actual data collection and analysis, with description of any important decisions that impacted the approach
• A description of observed results 
• An interpretation of the results and discussion of actions taken in response

The Commons offers assessment planning workshops and one-on-one consultations for designing and implementing program-level learning outcomes assessments. We can support you to:

• Clarify your question
• Identify existing surveys, concept inventories, rubrics, and other tools
• Develop custom tools
• Develop a timeline for your project with kay dates and milestones
• Design a population sample that supports desired comparisons
• Design a data collection plan
• Plan your data analysis 

Contact us at assessment@ucsd.edu for information about upcoming events or to schedule a one-on-one consultation.