How Good Is Good Enough?: Setting Benchmarks or Standards

Analyze and Interpret Assessment Data

100 is a good score. Or is it?

A score of 100 doesn’t really mean anything on its own...Was the total possible score 100? ...Or was the score 100 out of 150?...Do you even know?

As important as assessment scores are, they tell you very little without some context. And if you are going to spend a lot of time and money on assessments (and let’s face it: all colleges and universities spend a lot of time and money on assessments), you must be sure that you can make sense of your results.

Linda Suskie presents relatively simple and accessible ways to establish criteria that will enable you to analyze and interpret assessment data. It's the information you need to decode your assessment data and unlock its potential to improve student learning on your campus.

In How Good Is Good Enough?: Setting Benchmarks or Standards, we will prepare you to:

Understand and distinguish several different kinds of standards and benchmarks, including local standards, peer benchmarks, and value-added benchmarks;
Explain the pros and cons of various kinds of standards;
Develop processes to set standards for individual student performance and targets for collective student performance;
Determine which standards are appropriate (and which aren’t) for your campus and circumstances;
Involve colleagues in setting standards;
Use rubrics to articulate local standards;
Vary targets when necessary and incorporate samples of student work into discussions on standards; and
Shift your perspective to view standard setting as an iterative process.

During this information-dense 90-minute seminar, Suskie also explores the value of using more than one kind of standard to gain a more complete, balanced picture of student learning, and she will explain the value of expressing targets in percentages, not averages. We provide strategies and insights that will allow you to understand assessment results and use them to improve student learning and demonstrate accountability.

Who should view:

Chief academic officers
Deans
Assistant/associate provosts or vice presidents for academic affairs
Assessment coordinators/directors
Assessment committee members
Institutional research directors
Student development staff
Academic administrators
Faculty governance leaders
Department chairs

Includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators

Viewing a Magna Online Seminar on CD as a team can help your efforts to change campus-wide assessment perceptions. This seminar includes a Discussion Guide for Facilitators. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for generating productive discussions and thoughtful reflection. You also get guidelines for continuing the conversation after the event, implementing the strategies discussed, and creating a feedback loop for sharing best practices and challenges.

Presenter Linda Suskie is a passionate national higher education assessment expert and a vice president of the college and university accreditor Middle States Commission on Higher Education. She is also the author of Assessment of Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide.