Grad schools weigh in on program assessment

One of the Chronicle blogs had an interesting conversation about program assessment in graduate schools. It’s worth reading, both for the administrators’ viewpoints and for the anonymous comments by readers (ranging from thoughtful to petulant): 

http://chronicle.com/blogs/measuring/student-learning-outcomes-come-to-grad-school/27552

 

One thought on “Grad schools weigh in on program assessment

  1. Angela R. Linse

    Interesting article. I suspect that it will be awhile before we see this spread to grad schools. However, good for the CGS for sponsoring a session on it. At least it is prompting some discussion of the purpose of a graduate education.

    The comment from mrmars reminds me of all the arguments that I used to hear in STEM about why attention to diversity wasn’t an issue. He(?) assumes the system is working now–that the good students make it through.

    There is a growing body of research about graduate education. Some of that research indicates that there are a lot of reasons students do not persist in grad school, some of which are entirely unrelated to their abilities or their learning. Sometimes grads don’t make it because the system is (unconsciously) built to ensure that particular students don’t succeed.

    I know that my own graduate program could have benefited from a better understanding and better communication about what was expected–both on the part of students and faculty!

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