The Faculty Well-Being Survey was conducted during fall 2006. Four questions related to academic program assessment were included in the survey. The following provides a summary of the key findings and conclusions drawn by the Assessment Work Group during May 2007.
Input: D1. I am encouraged to provide input on: (B.) Program assessment activities (Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree)
Familiarity: D2. How familiar are you with academic program assessment in your department? (Very familiar, somewhat familiar, Not very familiar, Not at all familiar)
Support: G4. How satisfied are you personally with each of the following? (k.) Support for assessment activities in the department (Very satisfied, Satisfied, Dissatisfied, Very dissatisfied, Insufficient evidence to judge)
Involvement: M2. About what proportion of the hours indicated above do you typically spend on each of the following general activities? (Remember to have all your activities total to 100 percent!) Under each general activity please mark which of the specific activities are included in the work you do. (M2f:) Service Work (M2f_4:) Academic program assessment activities (yes)
A detailed analysis of the data about assessment activities was presented to the Assessment Work Group in May 2007 by Nancy Whelchel. The following paragraphs summarize the key findings.
Involvement: The faculty provided information on how they spend their time during a typical 7 day work week. The data showed that of those who completed the survey, 25% said they spent time on academic program assessment activities. The percentage of faculty who indicated that they participated in academic program assessment activities varied by college. full and associate professors were more likely than assistant professors and lecturers to say they participated in academic program assessment activities. There seemed to be little difference in gender of those who said they participated in assessment activities. (See slides 5-7)
Familiarity: 80% of the faculty were familiar with academic program assessment in their department. Faculty in some colleges were more familiar with program assessment than others. The differences range from CVM, where 35% of faculty from CVM were not familiar with program assessment in their department to COT and FYC faculty where all faculty reported that they knew about program assessment in their departments. Comparison of the “familiarly” question with the “involvement” question show that even those who were not involved were typically at least somewhat familiar with assessment. (See slides 8-10)
Input: 85% of the faculty agreed that they were encouraged to provide input on program assessment activities. There was a slight variation by college, as seen in slide 12. Comparison of this question with the “involvement” question shows that even those who were not involved typically felt they were encouraged to provide input on assessment. (See slides 11-13)
Support: Of the faculty who felt they had sufficient evidence to judge, 67% of the faculty felt “satisfied” (9%) or “very satisfied” (58%) with support for assessment activities in their department. Again slight differences between college results can be seen. Of those who responded to this question, at least 40% of the faculty in the CED, Design, and CHASS were dissatisfied with the support for assessment activities in their department. Faculty in FYC and Student Affairs were the most satisfied with support for assessment. Slide 20 shows there was a slight difference in satisfaction of those who were familiar with assessment: The more familiar faculty were with the departments assessment activities, the more satisfied they were with the support for assessment. Examining these differences by colleges, more than 40% of the faculty in CED and CHASS who said they were familiar with program assessment were dissatisfied with support for program assessment activities. Of those familiar with assessment activities, more than 75% of the faculty in CVM, PAMS, FYC and Student affairs were satisfied with support for assessment. (See slides 14-21)
It was encouraging to find that most faculty were familiar with academic program assessment and felt they were encouraged to provide input on program assessment activities.
The Assessment Work group knows that not all faculty are involved in assessment activities. Therefore, not unexpectedly, the results from the survey showed that, when thinking of a typical 7-day work week, only a few of the faculty (25 %) stated that they were involved in assessment activities.
Because the assessment professionals provide support for assessment activities on campus, the dissatisfaction of faculty with the level of support for assessment activities was disappointing. What is not clear from the survey results is why they are dissatisfied. Do they feel they need more time or resources to conduct assessment? Do they wish the assessment professionals would conduct the assessment for the departments? Are they dissatisfied with the services and advice provided by assessment professionals? Do faculty even know of the support they can receive, if they asked?
Also unclear is whether the faculty were thinking about either undergraduate or graduate program assessment activities, or both, when replying to these questions. Some faculty may be more satisfied with graduate program assessment activities than undergraduate (or visa versa). Further study of the differences in rank of faculty within each college gives some insight into who are more satisfied with the support of academic services (see: Results by College)
Another limit of this survey is that “academic program assessment” was the term used in each of these questions. The Assessment Work Group discussed whether or not all faculty familiar with this term. Are they all understanding these questions in the same way? Would those faculty in COE or CED reply the same way if the question asked about program accreditation activities (ABET or NCATE) instead of academic program assessment? Because the university has been discussing assessment of programs in undergraduate and graduate education and student affairs, the Assessment Work Group hopes that most faculty would be familiar with this term in the same way. However it is possible that some faculty would not consider assessment activities connected with “program accreditation” or “undergraduate program review” or “graduate program review” the same as “academic program assessment.” However, when reviewing the survey, the Assessment Work Group finds evidence that faculty are familiar with this term when examining the “Familiarity” question results by colleges. The data show that those colleges that have program accreditation activities (e.g., COE and CED) have higher percentage of faculty who said they were familiar with academic program assessment activities than colleges who do not have any program accreditation responsibilities (e.g., CHASS and PAMS).
Although most faculty seem to be familiar with assessment activities, it will be important to continue to discuss assessment activities at every appropriate opportunity.
Because it is unclear why some faculty are dissatisfied with support of assessment activities within the department, each assessment professional will go back to their clients and try to follow-up on why they are dissatisfied with support. What are the issues surrounding the “support” question? The Assessment Work Group will continue to follow-up on this concern and identify any central issues, for the university administration to consider.
During the discussion of the results, it became clear that only some of the academic programs offered by the College of Veterinary Medicine were being supported by an assessment professional. Therefore, Joni Spurlin will follow-up on the needs of this College.
The Assessment Work Group requests the same questions to be included with the upcoming Staff Well-being Survey (to be conducted spring 2008), to compare results.