Exit or other Interviews: Asking individuals to share their perceptions of their own attitudes and/or behaviors. These allow for individualized questions and follow-up probes based on responses.
Standardized Exams: Group administered exams that have single objective answers to each question, and focused on a single discipline or curricular area. These can be purchased from a private vendor, such as Aleks, or developed locally. See this article for a study comparing the validity and acceptability of commercial tests vs. locally developed tests.
Portfolios: Collections of student work samples, compiled over time and scored using established rubrics.
Portfolios can be used to view development over a period of time, such as Writing Assessment at DePauw:
Or portfolios can gather multiple components of a curriculum, such as writing, critical thinking, and research skills all at once from a capstone project.
It is important to have firmly established rubrics and scorers that have been trained to ensure inter-rater reliability.
Performance appraisal: Abilities are observed in an appropriate environment, such as musicians performing in a concert, scientists working in a lab, or producers working at a television studio. Performance appraisals should be based on established rubrics, with observers trained to ensure inter-rater reliability. These assessments can be done of current students, whether on campus or in an internship, or of alumni in their work environments.
External examiner: Bringing in an expert from outside the university to evaluate student work either solely or alongside internal assessments. Established rubrics should be used, though occasionally surveys or interviews can be used for more informal assessments. In either case, the means of evaluation should be agreed upon between the university and the external examiner.
Oral Exams: An assessment of student knowledge through a face-to-face dialog between the student and the examiner. This is time-intensive, but a great opportunity for formative assessment and formative evaluation (determining how and why students reached their answers).
Written surveys and questionnaires: Surveys can be used to ask individuals about their perceptions of:
These need to be carefully constructed to avoid bias and provide results that can lead to action.
Exit and other interviews: These interviews can be used to ask perceptions of how others in the program have changed in skills, attitudes, or behaviors.
Focus groups: Usually 7-12 individuals per group who are representative of a meaningful population:
Discussions must be led by a moderator trained to identify trends or patterns in perceptions, without interjecting their own biases.