Academic Assessment Committee
The Academic Assessment Committee is a UF Joint Committee that provides faculty oversight for academic assessment at the University of Florida. The committee members are appointed by the UF Faculty Senate and the UF President's office, and it reviews and approves all academic assessment plans for new programs, and any modifications to existing academic assessment plans.
A typical request for the Academic Assessment Committee usually contains a change to at least of the following:
- Mission updates
- SLO modifications
- Assessment methodology changes, such as a change to a curriculum map, assessment timeline, or changes to alignments of SLOs to specific assignments or questions on an exam to be used.
- Validity arguments for the use of 3rd party examinations as SLO measures, if one is to be used.
- Other curriculum-related matters may occasionally be brought to this committee as appropriate.
The Academic Assessment Handbook describes the committee's standard operating procedures and includes the definitions of actions on requests submitted. The Academic Assessment Committee does not review Program Goals or their changes; the program may change these without external approval.
What the Committee examines when it reviews Academic Assessment Plans
1. Adherence to UF Guidelines. The committee reviews the sections of the Academic Assessment Plans to ensure they follow UF guidelines for Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs) and present complete information for all of the plan sections. Essentially, the committee will look to make sure the plans to evaluate the program through assessment make sense.
2. Validity. The committee examines the validity broadly to examine the degree to which the intended measures provide information that is appropriate for its intended interpretation and use within an SLO. The committee examines the validity of SLO assessment measures by evaluating the appropriateness of the interpretation and use made of the results for the groups for whom the assessment is developed (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2013; AERA, APA, & NCME 2014).
3. Types of measures used for SLO assessment. The committee reviews the SLO measures to ensure that these are faculty developed and administered. For the use of a third-party examination, there is a rigorous review per the university policy. Use of External Exams for Academic Assessment policy.
4. Use of grades as SLO measures. The committee reviews the SLO measures to ensure that course grades are not used as the measure of the SLO; it has to be more granular than that (see Use of Grades for Academic Assessment).
5. Reliability. When reliability data are reported, the committee reviews these to ensure that they meet commonly accepted standards.
References
American Educational Research Association [AERA], American Psychological Association [APA], & the National Council on Measurement in Education [NCME]. (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
Miller, M. D., Linn, R. L., & Gronlund, N. E. (2013). Measurement and assessment in teaching (11th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson