Spotlight

Using Case Studies to Assess Students’ Abilities to Apply Knowledge to Real-world Situations (Public Affairs)

Direct measures are assessments of students’ performances or work products that demonstrate the students’ skills and knowledge, helping to reveal what they have learned and to what extent. Direct measures come in many forms and WSU encourages programs to develop measures that fit their needs and disciplinary expectations. Results from direct measures can give faculty […]

Using Exit Survey Results to Assess the Senior Experience (Construction Management)

Senior exit surveys give students an opportunity to provide feedback on their undergraduate experiences. Questions may include those about curriculum, faculty, offices and services, social opportunities, and career preparation. Academic programs can use students’ responses to inform decisions and improve student learning. 

Piloting a Computer-adaptive Foreign Language Placement Exam (Foreign Languages and Cultures)

Students in the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures (DFLC) enter the program with a wide range of previous language studies and abilities, creating the need for a reliable, efficient, and consistent method to measure students’ knowledge and abilities for placement as they begin their studies in the department. Traditionally, DFLC faculty members have made […]

Using Results of Standardized Examinations to Assess Student Learning Outcomes (Chemistry)

Effective program-level assessment provides data which faculty can use to collaboratively develop, maintain and improve an effective curriculum that promotes student learning through a program of study.  Access to appropriate assessment tools and measures are critical to this process. At WSU, faculty are responsible for selecting assessment measures that align with student learning outcomes in […]

Faculty Creation and Validation of a Microbiology Concept Inventory (School of Molecular Biosciences)

Assessment activities offer ways for faculty to think about student learning in the curriculum and how to support it most effectively in their own classes and the program. Many assessment activities can increase shared faculty understanding of the curriculum. For example, the design and approval of measures by faculty helps ensure that measures are meaningful […]

Developing an Archive for Assessment (School of Design and Construction)

Assessment data collected by a degree program are valuable tools in making decisions about teaching and learning. As such, it is important to both protect data and provide appropriate access to data and results from data analysis (i.e. information derived from data). A well-established infrastructure makes evidence of student learning readily available for faculty and […]

Assessing Student Learning at the Senior-level: Spring 2016 CAPS Course Assessment Reports (UCORE)

How are students doing on WSU’s Undergraduate Learning Goals? Are UCORE Capstone (CAPS) courses providing students an opportunity to integrate and apply what they have learned throughout the curriculum, bringing closure to their undergraduate experience? To answer these and other questions, UCORE CAPS Instructors completed UCORE CAPS Course Assessment Reports to gauge student learning at […]

Assessing Science Literacy at WSU: 2016 Science Literacy Concept Inventory (UCORE)

WSU defines science literacy as a “basic understanding of major scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision-making, participation in civic affairs, economic productivity and global stewardship.” Citizen-level science literacy involves being able to use scientific reasoning, assess the quality of sources of scientific information, understand the nature of scientific evidence and processes, and recognize […]

Categories: Assessment, Spotlight, UCORE

Integrated Learning and Assessment in the Capstone (Landscape Architecture)

Each spring, WSU’s Landscape Architecture seniors get the chance to experience a landscape outside of the classroom and to interact with the people who live in, work in, and care about that landscape. Their senior capstone course is a service-learning studio that challenges them to generate designs in response to the needs of a particular […]

Visualizing the Curriculum (Interior Design)

Room 118 in Carpenter Hall in the School of Design and Construction contains tables stacked with syllabi and assignment prompts. Every wall is covered with design presentation boards and other student work. The room holds course materials from every required course in the Interior Design curriculum along with samples of student products from all courses […]