Survey of Academic Department Chairs, Role In Student Assessment

Survey of Academic Department Chairs, Role In Student Assessment

Broken out by academic field, curriculum mapping was by far the most pervasive in engineering and mathematics followed by the visual arts. It was also significantly more common in the USA than in Canada; indeed, 57% of department chair from colleges in the in the US considered its use pervasive while this was true of less than 32% of chair from Canadian colleges. Its use was also somewhat greater among public than private colleges; more than 55% of department chair from public colleges considered its use pervasive versus less than 37% of department chair from private colleges in the sample.

This study presents data from 122 department chair at more than 100 colleges, predominantly in the USA and Canada, about how they view their role and the general role of faculty in student assessment efforts. The report gives detailed data on the use of curriculum mapping, rubrics and competency based courses. In an open ended question, chair discuss what their departments have been doing to enhance the student assessment effort at their institutions. In addition, the study presents their opinion on the level of cooperation among academic departments and various assessment related departments and efforts of the college or university.