Review Results and Report Action Plan

‘SO WHAT’ - Review the assessment activity findings with program faculty for interpretation, consideration, and discussion of possible changes to the program. The purpose of an action plan is to provide a narrative summary of the year’s assessment cycle, focusing particularly on the results and analysis of the assessments, any actions that have already been taken based on those results, and a review of previous actions taken. In simplest terms, the action plan describes what the program has done (in terms of assessment), what it learned, and what it will do as a result.

The following questions may be useful for guiding discussion of assessment results and possible action steps. It is not an exhaustive list of all possible topics that may be of relevance to a program’s discussion of assessment, nor is it intended to be a minimum set of requirements for every report to include.

1. Curriculum-related: Given the results, should we... Change how courses are taught or the assignments used?
   1. Revise course content?
   2. Revise the program or course learning outcomes?
   3. Modify frequency or schedule of course offerings?
   4. Revise or enforce prerequisites?
   5. Revise the course sequence?
   6. Add or delete course(s)?
2. Resource-related: Given the results, should we...
1. Hire or re-assign faculty and/or staff?
2. Increase classroom space?
3. Train faculty and/or staff?
3. Academic processes: Given the results, should we...
1. Improve how we use technology?
2. Revise advising standards or processes?
3. Revise admission criteria?
4. Should changes be made based on survey responses to...
1. Student needs e.g. financial
2. What students go to advisors about
3. Any other non-curricular factors that can be outside faculty support
5. Assessment planning or practices: Given the results, should we...
1. Change the criteria for success? Modify expectations?
2. Revise data-collection or data-evaluation methods?
3. Revise measurement approaches?
4. Change or develop other planning tools?
5. Collect and analyze additional data?
6. Have previous actions been completed? If not, where are they in terms of progress?
7. What were the results of previous actions? Are further actions necessary?

Distribute the report as widely as possible in multiple formats (e.g., oral and written). Consider holding a faculty/staff meeting to discuss the final report. Aside from formal reporting, the idea of the assessment report is to communicate to faculty and staff how assessment is improving the department, program, and institution. It is also a method of creating transparency in administrative decisions and for documenting shared governance and consensus