“How to Lie With Education Data, Part I”

“How to Lie With Education Data, Part 1” in The Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrates the power of data. When data and statistical information is used appropriately and presented factually, data has the influence to make significant changes in the medium for which it exists. However, it also has the ability to distort certain realities when misrepresented.

This article critiques a post, which appeared on Forbes’ site, that discusses the cost of college education and the prevalent concerns associated with student loan debt. Many are aware of the rising cost of a college education; however, many mistakenly equate the cost with its true value. Even though the post is written as a semi-satirical read, it does show the negative perception of the cost versus the value of higher education perceived by many students, former and present.

Per the critique, “Mr. Taylor exacerbates the general misunderstanding of the cost of college by excluding financial aid from his calculation of the average cost of four years of in-state tuition, fees, and other expenses at a public university. That causes him to vastly overstate the cost of college.” His reported costs of education are much higher than data accumulated by the Department of Education (DOE) as the DOE accounts for those financial aid awards. Even though the author’s self-reported data on his cost of education may be somewhat accurate, the statistics are presented in such a framework that lead the reader to perceive the cost of education with a colossal price tag with little value.

In order for one to have the opportunity to make an honest judgment, statistical claims need to contain accurate data. Such claims should also be presented with some level of transparency so the reader is aware of how it was obtained. Even though the cost of the author’s college education is equivalent to the purchase of 233 pairs of particular headphones, such a comparison is misleading and ignores the fact that an investment on such items depreciate in value immediately. The value of a college degree appreciates with time and should be presented as so.

 

 

The Role of Dropbox in the Self-Study Process

The College of Pharmacy has begun the self-study process, which will take place over the next year and a half.  This process leads to the pharmacy program once again receiving accreditation if all requirements outlined by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education are met. A steering committee has been created, which is comprised of the chairpersons of all committees within the college.  This committee will ensure that the self-study process remains on track for the site visit that is scheduled to take place at the beginning of 2016.  Dropbox is being used by all members of the steering committee as a way to share pertinent documents and data.  This seems to be the best way to facilitate good communication and transparency.  The Office of Assessment is managing the Dropbox account and troubleshooting any issues that need to be addressed.  It appears that this system will continue to be successful as we move forward in the self-study process.

Health Sciences Assessment: Course Evaluations

Often, accrediting agencies require that programs complete course evaluations when classes end. As an alternative to the traditional course evaluations completed on paper, the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences has already implemented the use of online evaluations across a number of its health sciences programs. As the spring 2014 semester comes to a close, we have completed the transition from paper-based evaluations to online evaluations for our Clinical Laboratory Sciences (CLS) program which had yet to changeover. 

After meeting with the CLS program director, it was decided to implement online course evaluations to CLS students, so as to allow for more efficient data collection and better organized analytics. To ensure higher rates of student participation, a well-defined plan was discussed with the program director. Class announcements were made by instructors to ensure that students are aware of this opportunity to provide feedback, which can, in turn, impact their current learning experience. E-mails were also sent to encourage participation prior to the closing of each course’s evaluation.

Based on the amount of course evaluations needed to be completed, embracing a system of online course evaluations has its benefits. Online evaluations can be cost-effective, while also allowing the Office of Assessment to focus on managing important analytics from a digital perspective. Furthermore, continuing to introduce forward-thinking ideas of assessment will also contribute to the ongoing efforts of improving the “culture of assessment” in the college. 

ACPE Standards Revision

ACPE (Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education) has recently published a draft of the proposed 2016 standards revision, along with a guidance document (suggested strategies for quality improvement). All stakeholders are invited by ACPE to take advantage of this opportunity to comment through one of the outlined procedures found at the site linked below.

https://www.acpe-accredit.org/deans/StandardsRevision.asp

ACPE standards are used as the basis for accreditation for Pharmacy schools, setting the bar for pharmacy education. It is important that our students, faculty, preceptors and alumni are involved in this draft process and take this opportunity to provide valuable feedback.

Assessment Perspectives from the 2014 NMC Horizon Report

The New Media Consortium (NMC), a group of leading universities, colleges, museums, and research centers, has recently published the “The NMC Horizon Report > 2014 Higher Education Edition”, a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). This report is a readable blend of higher education trends and predictions of the impact that those trends will have on higher education institutions.

The really nice part of this package, unsurprisingly since we are covering it here, is the tip of the hat to assessments role in mining new troves of data that new modes of education are producing. We have seen this trend noted elsewhere as well as on this blog here, where we covered MIT’s approach to using usage data for the assessment of MOOCs.

In a chapter entitled “Rise of Data-Driven Learning and Assessment”, the report touches on the sensitivity of personal data, the possible use of this data to drive adaptive response, and the value of this data for assessing learning.

You can get get a pdf copy of the report here, or go to the NMC site, here to learn more.

Elements of a True Assessment Culture

The American Association of University Professors published an article titled “Establishing a Culture of Assessment” that discusses what elements are involved in creating a strong culture of assessment.  The Office of Assessment presented a poster at the Assessment Institute in Indianapolis this October that tackled this issue.   The major goal of the poster was to survey faculty and students to determine their understanding of assessment and how it functions within the College. It was clear from these surveys that more needs to be done to strengthen the College’s assessment culture. This article highlights some of the major components of a strong culture of assessment that serve as a guide for our assessment team.  These elements include:

• General Education Goals
• Common Use of Assessment Terms
• Faculty Ownership
• Ongoing Professional Development
• Administrative Support and Understanding
• Practical, Sustainable Assessment Plan
• Systematic Assessment
• Student Learning Outcomes
• Comprehensive Program Review
• Assessment of Co-curricular Activities
• Institutional Effectiveness
• Information Sharing
• Planning and Budgeting
• Celebration of Success
• New Initiatives

The Office of Assessment has been working towards achieving many of these components.  There have been efforts made to survey faculty in order to gauge their perspective on assessment and its effectiveness within the College.  Assessment workshops have been held that target students and a forum for Pharmacy faculty is scheduled for December.  Information sharing has been a major focus.  This has been achieved through Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and the Faculty Council Shared Drive.  The next step is to devise a plan for moving forward to further strengthen the culture of assessment.  It would be beneficial to continue our efforts to improve information sharing and look for more effective and creative ways to achieve this goal.  An assessment plan is in place but it would be helpful to consider how this plan could be further developed, improved and refined.  It is important for the assessment team to continue to devise innovative ways to assess programs and evaluate student learning.  Future research projects continue to be discussed as we plan to achieve more of these assessment goals.

Culture of Assessment: Are We There Yet?

The Assessment Team in the College recently attended the 2013 Assessment Institute in Indianapolis, and presented a poster on the ongoing development of a culture of assessment. The poster, ‘Culture of Assessment – Are We There Yet?’ is published here:

Culture of Assessment: Are We There Yet?

One of the major take-home messages that we brought back from this meeting, is that there is a common struggle for transparency in assessment, specifically with student stakeholders. We have noted this in the past, and hope that this blog, along with our social media sites, will continue to take us closer and closer toward this goal. We want all of our stakeholders to feel informed, and always in the loop.

Top Ten Ways Assessment Makes Your Life Better

The Office of Assessment has been working to strengthen the culture of assessment.  This initiative involves hosting workshops for students where the Assessment team describes what is meant by assessment and explains its role within the College. The students responded to the first workshop by saying that they were interested in learning more about how assessment directly impacts their lives.  It became clear that a top ten list would be a great way to communicate this information.  A list of ten items was generated to show students how their involvement in the assessment process can make their lives better.

 Top Ten Ways That Assessment Makes Your Life Better

1. We insure that faculty and administrators hear your feedback “loud and clear”.

2. Provide Faculty with question quality metrics for scantron exams

3. Make sure that student opinions are available when funds are allocated for facility improvement.

4. Use student feedback to identify new potential elective courses.

5. Provide a forum for certification exam review.

6. Let the administration know what social events you want to see more of.

7. Identify what parts of the curriculum, need strengthening and improvement.

8. Improve grading accuracy on scantron graded exams.

9. Evaluate how new technologies work in the classroom.

10. Provide a structured means for students to track achievement through professional portfolios.

Learning and Value

Check out this interesting article regarding President Obama’s renewed plan for holding colleges and universities accountable. Assessment continues to grow. Here’s an excerpt:

“Learning becomes cumulative when the faculty (a collective noun) acts collectively to ensure that all coursework and majors share, reinforce and appropriately assess higher learning, a process that intentionally progresses each year in complexity, adequacy, and sophistication.”

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/08/27/obamas-value-plan-leaves-out-student-learning-essay#ixzz2dT21iOqe 

Inside Higher Ed 

 

Assessment and Student Engagement

One of the real take-home messages from both our Faculty and Student Culture of Assessment Surveys was that students seem to be relatively unaware of the assessment process in our College. In response to this, we have taken several steps to begin crossing that bridge, and getting students more ‘in-the-know’ when it comes to what we are doing in the assessment realm.

As part of this, and as blogged about in March, we held an Assessment workshop at the Bartilucci Center. This workshop was a good first step in our workshop series, and will be leading to further assessment workshops to be held on the Queens campus in the Fall semester. These workshops will change and take-shape in accordance with student questions and concerns as garnered through a follow-up survey given after the Bartilucci workshop.

The College also recently held its Annual Year-End BBQ for all students in the College. This student-engagement event allowed students to unwind, and take part in a College-specific event that gave them opportunities to talk to faculty, administrators and other stakeholders about anything they felt needed to be discussed. Utilizing the College’s facebook page and twitter feed, and incorporating them into the BBQ and subsequent picture-posts and raffles, the Office of Assessment has been able to give students more of a sense of what we are doing, drawing attention to our communication forums. As our purpose in our College is to serve our students, the Year-End BBQ really allows us to give back, while fostering this student engagement that is so necessary.

Assessment posters have also been put up, and will continue to be posted, through St. Albert Hall and the Bartilucci Center, in an attempt to draw students in and show them just how useful their feedback is. As we’ve talked about before, this is all in an attempt to foster the culture of assessment within our College.

As we look forward, and past the ‘Culture Survey’ phase, we have moved on to the Student Engagement portion of our campaign to foster the culture of assessment within our College. We are continuing to look for new and improved ways to accomplish this feat.