10/2009 First Year Assessment Conference - Charlotte, NC.

National Resource Center for the The First Year Experience & Students in Transition. Held in Charlotte (way cool town!) NC October 10-12, 2009.


Motivation for attending:

• continue to soak up all things first year
• look for measurements of assessing "success" in the first year
• hear about others assessment efforts in the first year

I was the only librarian in attendance. Heavily attended by Institutional Research officers, Assessment Directors, teaching faculty, FYE (first year experience) directors, and lots of Student Affairs professionals (ResLife, CampusLife, Orientation) professionals.

This was one of those conferences wherein you listen for awhile and then you mix it up with the folks you are attending with. This was incredibly valuable as I got an opportunities to talk about how to assess both adjustment to campus life and academic success in the classroom. It is interesting to me that universities still have trouble connecting what happens in the Residence Halls (like a bad roomate situation) can affect classroom performance. There seems to be a significant divide between experience programs and learning programs which is really too bad.

I attended sessions on:

• Assessment Primer (Paula Krist, Ph.D. University of San Diego): assessment is ongoing/cyclical, student centered, mission/goals driven, evidenced-based decision-making mechanism, FY assessment evidence can be; tests, embedded questions, observed behavior, simulation participation, essays/projects scored by rubrics, minute papers. Problems can arise with who collects the data, where is stored and what program changes did you make based on the assessment. "Don't be data rich and information poor."
  
• Politics of Assessment (Catherine Anderson, Assoc. Prof. Gallaudet): Define the problem assessment can help you address, be aware of barriers, don't let the people in charge of a program be ultimately responsible for the assessment of same program, find people of integrity to assist, always report findings to any and all affected by it.
• Costs & Benefits of Assessment (Paula Krist): Built on her primer session. Figure out your outcomes (or objectives) which should be attached to mission. Difference between two types of program assessment (operational vs. student learning objectives). Which type of data gathering instrument do you use, can you harvest existing data? With data, develop an action plan. Plan sets the stage for the next round of data gather. Outcome assessment should be SMART (specific, measurable, agressive/attainable, time-bound). Costs include people, time and money. How do you define success?
  
• Portfolio Assessment (Wendy Troxel, Asst. Professor, Illinois State University): Use of portfolios (specifically of the e-variety) to track student writing. Stage set really nicely, what is the difference between a pile of paper and a scrapbook? Organization, purpose, tools. Show and tell of e-portfolio use. Interesting discussion about who "owns" the content that sounds similar to our Academic Integrity work. Review folioworld and Rubistar
  
• Interviews & Focus Groups (Barbara Tobolowsky, UT-Arlington). Primer on when to use which process to gather qualitative data. Describes when to use interview (highly personal want to elicit personal experience) vs. focus group (group might cajole more information than a one-on-one). In either case, you need to establish a research question and formulate your questions to elicit the information you need to answer your raison d'etre (the R?). Record if possible your session. Significance of IRB cooperation if needed. Detemine assessment goals and pay particular attention to survey/interviewer bias. Consider having an outsider do your data collection.
  
• Assessing the Impact of Orientation Programs (Hanich, McDowell, Millersville University, PA). I attended this session primarily to see how they assessed their First Year Reading Program which includes student surveys, facilitator feedback, writing contest; all of which are used to assess the learning outcomes of the FYR program. Provided a sample student survey.