Academic Assessment Committee
The Academic Assessment Committee is a joint committee that provides faculty oversight for academic assessment at the University of Florida. The committee reviews and approves all academic assessment plans for new programs, and modifications to existing academic assessment plans.
These typically include at least one 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 Program Goals (PGs), and present complete information for all of the plan sections (see the Guide for Developing Program Goals and Student Learning Outcomes, AAP Instructions, and Planning Resources for additional information).
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.
- SLOs. 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).
- Program Goals. The committee examines the validity of Program Goal measures by evaluating appropriateness of the interpretation and use of the measure's results for the goal.
3. Types of measures used for SLO assessment. The committee reviews the SLO measures to ensure that these are faculty developed and administered, and not third-party examinations (see Use of External Exams for Academic Assessment).
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