A Streamlined Approach to Assessing Student Achievement of Program Learning Outcomes (Journalism and Media Production)

An effective system of assessing student learning includes measures collected near the end of the curriculum, providing information about what students are able to achieve at the end of the program. For many undergraduate programs, these measures include the evaluation of student performance in 400-level courses, based on coursework that demonstrates specific program-level student learning outcomes.

WSU’s Journalism and Media Production, BA degree program has worked since spring 2023 to pilot and scale up a process where instructors of selected 400-level courses for each of the program’s four majors use student work products in their own courses – papers, presentations, or other types of assignments – to evaluate student achievement of program learning outcomes. Specifically, participating faculty use their expert judgement to fill out an assessment form that collects a mix of quantitative data (evaluation of the number of students at each level of performance on a rating scale for the program learning outcome that are appropriate to the course context and assignments) and qualitative data (comments about strengths and weaknesses in student performance on program learning outcomes).

Providing overall ratings and comments, instead of reporting scores and comments for each individual student, streamlines the assessment process and saves faculty time in both the collection and analysis of the assessment data. Participating instructors have indicated that the form typically takes 30 minutes or less to complete at the end of each semester, especially once they become familiar with the process.

This approach is proving to be a useful and sustainable measure for program assessment in the Murrow College of Communication. In fact, the college has expanded this approach to also assess program learning outcomes for the Strategic Communication, BA in selected courses across each of its four majors and campuses.

For more information on evaluating student coursework for program assessment, see ACE’s Quick Guide: Approaches to Evaluating Student Coursework for Undergraduate Program Assessment (PDF). ACE is also available to collaborate with undergraduate degree programs to design tools to measure program-level learning outcomes; contact us for additional information.