Please post here what you are learning about assessment from articles, websites, or newspaper articles, etc. Consider such concepts as what is happening with the Higher Learning Commission or accreditation bodies, such as NCATE, ACSW, etc.
I have been having discussions with people and considering the availability of collected data and how some individuals and/or groups of people think that all data is useful to all who investigate a particular system. My example is when I started in my latest employment, I signed on to an agency that was trying to get a division of programming up and running and did not understand why the community did not take them seriously. In addition to the fact that this area of focus deviates from what they are known for in the community, they were also presenting descriptive statistics that did not reflect the intended target population. The more I considered this concept, the more examples I found of systems using/presenting available data and not necessarily collected assessment data. It is almost like individuals and groups conclude that if it was collected, it must be useful……
It is interesting to read the above post. Dissemination is a new concept for me but pretty easily understood. There are those that may find it necessary to present data regardless of its meaning. One can get caught up in statistics and forget the purpose. I thought closing the loop in our class was a prime example of dissemination and making data collected "humanized". What is the purpose of these numbers or the data we collect if nobody understands it...especially the stakeholder?
I am not sure how many of you are aware, but the Higher Learning Commission is moving away from PEAQ, the Program to Evaluate and Advance Quality, where it is a 10 year process, to two separate processes: assurance and improvement. This was proposed this previous fall and will focus on institutional improvement replacing the traditional self-study with a quality initiative plan developed by the institution. I feel this is a vast improvement to the current process because now it will be continuous and never "placed on the shelf for 8 years" plus decrease the reaction time for institutions to improve.
I have been having discussions with people and considering the availability of collected data and how some individuals and/or groups of people think that all data is useful to all who investigate a particular system. My example is when I started in my latest employment, I signed on to an agency that was trying to get a division of programming up and running and did not understand why the community did not take them seriously. In addition to the fact that this area of focus deviates from what they are known for in the community, they were also presenting descriptive statistics that did not reflect the intended target population. The more I considered this concept, the more examples I found of systems using/presenting available data and not necessarily collected assessment data. It is almost like individuals and groups conclude that if it was collected, it must be useful……
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to read the above post. Dissemination is a new concept for me but pretty easily understood. There are those that may find it necessary to present data regardless of its meaning. One can get caught up in statistics and forget the purpose. I thought closing the loop in our class was a prime example of dissemination and making data collected "humanized". What is the purpose of these numbers or the data we collect if nobody understands it...especially the stakeholder?
ReplyDeleteI am not sure how many of you are aware, but the Higher Learning Commission is moving away from PEAQ, the Program to Evaluate and Advance Quality, where it is a 10 year process, to two separate processes: assurance and improvement. This was proposed this previous fall and will focus on institutional improvement replacing the traditional self-study with a quality initiative plan developed by the institution.
ReplyDeleteI feel this is a vast improvement to the current process because now it will be continuous and never "placed on the shelf for 8 years" plus decrease the reaction time for institutions to improve.