JoeBooksLevy

2025 Assessment Insights in Student Affairs

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 21:17:32 -0700

While finances and enrollment changes have become mainstays of institutional concern, student learning assessment remains a top-cited area of concern and need for improvement for higher education institutions across accreditors. When assessment is cited, student affairs and co-curricular assessment activity (or lack thereof) is one of the top areas lacking among institutional practices. 

An evergreen challenge is the lack of resources and knowledge around student affairs assessment. For these reasons and more, Student Affairs Assessment Leaders (SAAL) continue to invest in and promote their free massive open online course (MOOC), Applying & Leading Assessment in Student Affairs.  

The course has run annually for the past nine years and consistently sees quality ratings of over 90%. Indication materials and activities have also had a positive impact on these ratings. It averages more than 1,600 participants per year and consistently brings in more folks due to the relevance of the material paired with the lack of resources and guidance available at institutions for faculty, staff and administrators on the subject. A free, self-paced introductory course with an abundance of resources and practical activities to ground the material has proven successful, popular and useful to thousands of people. ...Read More

2024 Assessment Insights in Student Affairs

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 22:16:09 -0700

Assessment of student learning remains one of the most cited areas of concern or need for improvement for higher education institutions across accreditors. Within that space, assessment for student affairs and co-curricular areas is one of the top areas lacking among institutional practices.

Seemingly an evergreen challenge is the lack of resources and knowledge of student affairs assessment. For these reasons and more, the Student Affairs Assessment Leaders (SAAL) continue to invest and promote their free massive open online course (MOOC), Applying & Leading Assessment in Student Affairs.

The course has run once a year for the past eight years and consistently sees over 90% course quality ratings. Indication materials and activities also had a positive impact on them. It averages more than 1,500 participants per year and consistently brings in more folks due to the relevance of the material paired with the lack of resources and guidance available at institutions for faculty, staff and administrators on the subject. A free, self-paced, introductory course with an abundance of resources and practical activities to ground the material has proven successfully popular and useful to thousands of people.

2023 Assessment Insights in Student Affairs

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 14:54:55 -0700

Assessment of student learning is one of the most cited areas of concern or need for improvement for higher education institutions across accreditors. Within that space, assessment for student affairs and co-curricular areas has been one of the top areas lacking among institutional practices.

Most concerning in the face of that reality is the lack of staffing, resources and even familiarity with student affairs assessment. For these reasons and more, the Student Affairs Assessment Leaders (SAAL) continue to invest and promote their free massive open online course (MOOC), Applying & Leading Assessment in Student Affairs.

The course has run once a year for the past seven years and consistently sees over 90% course quality ratings, and indication materials and activities have had a positive impact on them. It averages more than 1,500 participants per year and consistently brings in more folks due to the relevance of the material paired with the lack of resources and guidance available at institutions for faculty, staff and administrators on the subject. A free, self-paced, introductory course with an abundance of resources and practical activities to ground the material has proven successfully popular and useful to thousands of people.

4 Ways You Should Be Reviewing & Refining Your Student Learning Outcomes

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 08:36:54 -0700

You likely have some student learning outcome statements — that is, statements that reflect what skills or knowledge sets you want students to learn as a result of your office or division’s programming.

You may have created these statements because someone told you to, because you were inspired by a colleague, or simply because you recognized that the interactions you have with students (and they with you!) can result in a change of student knowledge, skill, or behavior. Either way, if you have these statements but are not sure if they are quality, appropriate, or “enough,” then this blog post is for you. It’s also for anyone seeking to create learning outcomes for the first time!

I’ll cover key considerations and steps you can take in either creating or reviewing and refining your learning outcomes.

The information is presented chronologically, in the order of how I usually evaluate learning outcomes. But you do not necessarily have to follow the same order, especially if aspects of the considerations do not apply to you and your outcomes.

PURPOSE CHECK

First and foremost, you should check to see if your learning outcomes are indeed concerned with student learning.

Is each statement describing something your staff or interventions do (such as providing programs and opportunities, creating awareness,...Read More

How Data Can Help #SApros Improve Their Co-Curricular Courses & Workshops

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 12:18:24 -0700

Everyone involved in shaping student learning has a responsibility to do meaningful and impactful assessment.

Assessment should help you answer essential questions about the student learning experience. And because of the care you hopefully put into crafting learning outcomes for student engagement, you should be measuring reality compared to expectations.

If you’re teaching a course or facilitating a co-curricular workshop – especially in an online modality – you’ll have ample data available for assessment. Certainly, you can find summative data to inform future improvements, but this blog will focus on formative assessment methods — that is, data you can review and changes you can make while the experience is still occurring. You can learn more about formative versus summative assessments here but, for now, let’s dig into techniques for data-informed instruction.

SHAPING YOUR APPROACH

As with any assessment cycle, the place to start is with outcome mapping and assessment planning. By aligning outcomes and interventions, you can narrow your focus as to what and where to assess. Outcome maps can help identify...Read More

9 Smart Ways to Involve Students in Assessment of Programs & Learning

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 12:45:33 -0700

We need to involve students more in assessment.

Despite assessment usually being shorthand for assessment of student learning, faculty, staff, and assessment pros are all guilty of not engaging students as much as we should.

And it’s not like including students is merely a nice thing to do. We owe it to students to make them partners and valued stakeholders in the process. Because that’s what they are! Assessment data is both for and about students, making the processes and the results relevant and pertinent to students as an audience.

There are many possible ways to involve students in assessment. It can be helpful to first think through the assessment cycle and common practices in order to identify realistic opportunities and activities for which to include students as collaborators. Although institutional models for assessment may differ, consider the following student inclusion efforts grouped by four categories: assessment planning, data collection, reporting, and taking action.

How & Why All Student Affairs Professionals Should Be Measuring Co-Curricular Learning

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 11:24:18 -0700

The importance of assessment should not be lost on any student affairs professional.

If it’s viewed as merely a nice-to-have activity at your institution, then you need to help reprioritize. Assessment is one of the most cited areas of concern or deficiency for accreditors and quality assurance entities. More specifically, institutions are often cited by accreditors for the lack of engagement or insufficient evidence of co-curricular and student affairs assessment.

I’ve encountered far too many student affairs professionals who do not believe that their work impacts their students’ learning. I remind them that learning involves any change in knowledge, skills, or behavior — not just classic academic learning. If your area or office engages with students in any way, then assessment of student learning includes you!

Some areas may be more transactional and the learning outcomes may be pretty narrow or limited, but that’s ok. Every area plays a different role in the student experience, and assessment should be bounded by the scope of an area’s work.

It is worth pointing out that assessment for student affairs shouldn’t be all that different in its approach than efforts undertaken by academic affairs.

Academic affairs departments typically conduct specific learning interventions, including courses, capstone projects, and academic documents. These interventions contain and are guided by...Read More

Why & How You Should Set Student Learning Targets for Every Program

Tue, 25 May 2021 20:05:40 -0700

Planning and reporting are two critical aspects of the assessment cycle.

Planning helps you connect your office or department’s mission to services, explicitly stating what your area does for students in terms of learning outcomes and how you will measure those outcomes. Reporting helps tell the story of what you found, what it means, why it matters, and what you plan to do about it.

And there’s one thing that’s crucial to both planning and reporting: setting targets for success.

WHAT IS A TARGET?

When I talk about targets in assessment, I’m referring to the desired or expected level of performance for student learning. Ultimately, they are an indicator of whether or not an outcome was achieved. These go by a number of names – including targets, goals, success criteria – but I’ll use target for clarity and consistency here.

Targets are useful because they help ease reporting and interpretation of results to determine achievement or success in relation to student learning outcomes and operational objectives. Without a clear target, determining success or achievement can be subjective. After all, a workshop resulting in 75% of participants being able to articulate their leadership philosophy may sound like a “good” result at face value. But it’s much less impressive if last year’s workshop yielded a...Read More

When to Use Formative vs Summative Assessments to Gather Engagement Data

Mon, 03 May 2021 12:49:48 -0700

Assessment is a cyclical process. It involves planning to measure and report on student learning, then taking action in hopes of making improvements where expectations are not met by reality.

I’ve written before about the importance of defining the what of assessment (AKA learning outcomes), but you should also consider when assessment will occur and why. Specifically, I’m now going to delve into the definitions and use cases for formative and summative assessment efforts.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Formative assessment is when measurement occurs during an activity and is intended for results to inform approaches for the remainder of the experience.

By design, the intention is to measure learning at a particular point in a course, program, or event. As such, you should not expect students to demonstrate mastery of learning at this point; they are still in the process of learning! However, they should be demonstrating learning at a level appropriate to the concepts being introduced or reinforced.

An example of a formative assessment could be orientation leaders gathering feedback from students and families throughout a multi-day orientation program. Information on awareness of resources could inform changes to reiterate this information the next day. Likewise, feedback on the accessibility of offices for registration services (such as scheduling courses, obtaining student IDs, and touring buildings) could inform staffing and planned activities for the remainder of the orientation experience.

Formative assessment could also be as simple as a student activities professional checking in with workshop participants to see how the students are doing. Are students understanding what’s being presented? When SA pros share what’s left of the workshop, do students...Read More

How to Use Your Student Information System to Make Better Engagement Decisions

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 20:31:15 -0700

How would you like to get more from your data collection efforts without doing more data collection?

I’m talking about getting more out of your surveys, rubrics, engagement data, and even your event attendance tracking information without asking more questions or taking up more of students’ time. And how would you like to do it without having to maintain or rely on your own records of data and information about students?

Let’s talk about data integration. Most institutions have multiple data sets stored in various places and within various systems: Student enrollment and records information (including demographics, address, transcripts, financial aid, and more) is stored within your Student Information System (SIS), class participation and grade data is stored within your Learning Management System (LMS), student participation or engagement data is stored within a student engagement platform, and your assessment data may be stored in a dedicated Assessment Management System (AMS).

Through a little technological magic, we can link and connect these data sets. And by “we”, I mean that you’re likely going to need to bring in your fellow campus data guardians. While some collaboration may be needed, connecting these data sets is possible and beneficial for multiple parties.

I’ll talk more about the how later on; first let’s talk more about why you would want to do this.

TOP BENEFITS OF CONNECTING

Let’s focus just on student affairs professionals connecting to their Student Information System (SIS). If you are able to tap into this, you could shorten your data collection efforts on forms and surveys and eliminate the need for students to self-report information about themselves, such as their majors, identity demographics, and class years.

All you...Read More