Sample Project Learning Assessment Summary

Educational assessment continues to be adopted by more and more schools throughout the country. From Kindergarten to Graduate School, formalized assessment has become an important part in today's competitive educational system, and continues to grow in popularity within schools that are looking for better ways to improve student outcomes. The following is an example of what a summary of this type of assessment research would look like. It's based on an executive summary of educational assessment from a major University in the United States, whose assessment strategies have continued to improve their status in the US educational system:

Program: Physical Sciences Learning Outcomes Assessed During This Period: Show the ability to effectively utilize computational tools for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data in a real world setting. Findings: Students met, but didn't beat learning assessment expectations. It was found that students in physics performed better than students in chemistry despite sharing the same data collection classes.

Students in physics have completed 2 additional classes at this stage in their major that focus on real world analysis. All students performed at expectations on data analysis, but data collection and interpretation were at or slightly below objectives. Conclusion: Students within the chemistry major complete fewer classes that relate to real world analysis, and appear to have sparse experience with data collection.

Surveys of students indicated that chemistry students felt less confident in their knowledge. Test scores on application tests confirmed that the chemistry track appeared far less prepared than the physics track. These findings held when adjusted for overall grade point average to account for differences in student learning between majors.

Chemistry professors surveyed did not appear to understand the importance of their role in the outcome. Physics professors appeared to support the assessment process and beliefs. It is possible that this played a role in the outcome.

Recommendations: Require an additional class focused on experimentation, with projects that mimic real life data collection and analysis methodologies. Develop mandatory workshop for chemistry faculty to describe and promote involvement in educational assessment, especially as it relates to chemistry. Survey students to better understand their belief systems about chemistry as a major.

See if there are additional learning styles or issues that need to be addressed to combat the lower test scores.