Creating and Sustaining Change: Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes

Metta Alsobrook

Change is a constant condition within organizations, due to the introduction of new technologies, market place demands, external forces, and pressures to improve organizational effectiveness. However, large-scale organizational change efforts tend to fail more than 70 percent of the time. One of the recent large-scale movements within higher education institutions is towards accountability and assessment on student learning outcomes, which is higher education institutions should assess whether students learn what they should and retain the knowledge once learned. In addition, assessment findings should become a feedback mechanism to improve students’ education experiences. In this paper the author describe a change effort within a research university for compliance with regional accrediting commission requirements and program specific (engineering) accreditation requirements and procedures in defining and implementing assessment of student learning outcomes. The main issue is not just introducing new contents to the member of the faculty, but making sure that the assessment effort is meaningful. Issues arrived and solutions in creating and sustaining the change effort will be discussed.

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