Academic Assessment: Program Review Protocol

Academic programs are the backbone of Trinity’s academic experience; therefore, program review is essential to ensuring the quality and excellence of a Trinity education. The goal of program review is to identify programs’ strengths and weaknesses in serving Trinity’s mission and meeting student needs, and to stimulate mission-driven improvements in the learning outcomes of an evolving student population.

The implementation of a systematic and rigorous approach to program review has been an ongoing priority at Trinity. Trinity’s accrediting body’s (Middle States Commission on Higher Education) Standard 7 emphasizes that an effective institution-wide program of outcomes assessment requires faculty and administrators to work together on design and implementation. In keeping with this standard, Trinity’s program review process relies on collaborative faculty/administration work and peer review. The University Curriculum and Academic Policy Committee (UCAP), which provides the peer review phase of the process, includes faculty representatives from the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), the School of Professional Studies (SPS), and the School of Education (EDU). UCAP collaborates with the Office of Academic Affairs in designing the protocols that guide program review activities and the evaluation of the annual progress and final reports of the each academic program.

External Review

As part of the program review process, the program faculty will provide the names, contact information, and curriculum vitae for three external reviewers in the program’s discipline. This list must be provided to the Office of Academic Affairs by September 30 of the program’s review year.

Data Collection

Each year, selected programs begin the program review cycle, which continues over a three-year period. In the first year, the program faculty review and analyze data provided by the Office of Academic Affairs. This data includes:

1. program course offerings and enrollments by semester for the past three years
2. course rotations, showing how frequently and in which sessions (day, weekly, term 1, etc) each course has been offered for the past three years
3. faculty loads, showing the courses and enrollments for each full time and adjunct faculty member by semester for the past three years
4. courses by school, showing which courses have been offered in CAS and which in SPS time slots by semester for the past three years
5. graduates, showing the program’s graduating majors by year for the past three years
6. current majors and minors, showing the program’s currently enrolled majors and minors by class year by school.

Data Analysis

Program faculty are asked to analyze the aforementioned data and to address the following questions as they formulate their Program Review Report:

• Referring to data sets [1] and [2], is the correct mix of courses being offered; is the rotation of courses appropriate? More specifically, are courses offered with the appropriate frequency, and in the appropriate sessions (day and evening/weekend) to meet demand while maintaining healthy enrollment levels? Does the program offer the right mix of service courses, lower-level courses, and upper-level courses to serve all its student populations effectively?
• Referring to data set [3], what percentage of student credit hours are offered by full time faculty? By adjuncts? Are these percentages appropriate? Why or why not?
• Referring to data set [4], is the program viable in each collegiate unit in which it offers a major and/or minor? Please explain.
• Referring to data sets [5] and [6], analyze patterns in the expansion or contraction in the size of the graduating class and the numbers of currently enrolled majors. Please discuss the program’s plans for dealing with this trend.

Additionally, program faculty design specific instruments for the measurement of student learning. Such instruments ascertain how effectively program goals and objectives are met and are administered at both the course and program level. For instance, faculty might use rubrics in evaluating a writing assignment: the results would be used to assess how effectively a particular course and in turn program goals were met. Another instrument might be a graduating student’s portfolio and/or performance on a senior comprehensive exam designed to measure a student’s achievement of particular programmatic goals. Program faculty work together to design a data gathering plan for this type of student learning assessment.

Summary

Program faculty are then asked to write a summary analysis that addresses the changes this analysis indicates, considering particularly changes that may occur in the program’s course offerings, course rotation, faculty deployment, and major/minor offerings in the various collegiate units. The faculty is then tasked with developing a plan for responding to these findings and with submitting that plan to the Office of Academic Affairs early in the spring semester of the program review year. UCAP then provides the peer review and responds to that plan. With this feedback the program faculty develop program improvement plans and implementation strategies in consultation with their collegiate dean and the Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA).

Continuous Improvement

In the second and third years of the program review cycle, program faculty meet with their collegiate dean and the VPAA to review progress and to analyze the results of plan implementation. Since program review is an ongoing process that is inherently reflective, faculty are encouraged to adapt their practices, when appropriate, in order to incorporate findings from data. Each year, the program faculty submit a Plan of Action to their collegiate Dean and in turn the VPAA: this Plan reflects knowledge gained from the ongoing program review process and is one building block for future program review cycles.

Trinity is deeply committed to incorporating the results of program reviews fully and systematically into University-wide assessment activities, truly believing that individual programs’ findings can feed into and enrich the development of institutional plans for improving student learning. Program review such as that described above will play a vital role as the University continues to promote learner-centered outcomes throughout its curriculum.

For a schedule of Program Reviews, please click here.