Assessment Resources

Effective program assessment involves several key components:

1. Clear Objectives: Establishing well-defined, measurable goals and outcomes for the program that align with the institution’s mission and the needs of stakeholders.
2. Comprehensive Data Collection: Gathering qualitative and quantitative data from various sources, including student performance, feedback from faculty, alumni, and employers, to get a holistic view of the program’s effectiveness.
3. Alignment with Standards: Ensuring the program meets accreditation standards and industry benchmarks, which helps maintain quality and relevance.
4. Continuous Improvement: Using assessment results to make informed decisions about curriculum changes, teaching methods, and resource allocation to enhance the program.

The Higher Learning Commission underscores the importance of assessment for accreditation in its Guiding Values and accreditation criteria. The fourth Guiding Value states:

“A process of assessment is essential to continuous improvement, and therefore a commitment to assessment should be deeply embedded in an institution’s activities. Assessment applies not only to student learning and educational outcomes but to an institution’s approach to improvement of institutional effectiveness.

For student learning, a commitment to assessment would mean assessment at the program level that proceeds from clear goals, involves faculty at all points in the process, and analyzes the assessment results; it would also mean that the institution improves its programs or ancillary services or other operations on the basis of those analyses. Institutions committed to improvement review their programs regularly and seek external judgment, advice or benchmarks in their assessments. Because in recent years the issues of persistence and completion have become central to public concern about higher education, the current Criteria direct attention to them as possible indicators of quality and foci for improvement, without prescribing either the measures or outcomes.”

From this Guiding Value, Criterion 3: Teaching and Learning for Student Success requires that “The institution demonstrates responsibility for the quality of its educational programs, learning environments and support services, and it evaluates their effectiveness in fulfilling its mission. The rigor and quality of each educational program is consistent regardless of modality, location or other differentiating factors.” Specifically:

3.E. Assessment of Student Learning

The institution improves the quality of educational programs based on its assessment of student learning.

3.F. Program Review

The institution improves its curriculum based on periodic program review.

Note: HLC’s Revised Criteria for Accreditation will go into effect on September 1, 2025. MSU Denver will participate in the Higher Learning Commission’s reaffirmation of accreditation process in 2026-2027.