VOLUME XV, NUMBER 24

4% INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

‘PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ‘NISOD): COLLEGE OF EDUCATION,
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS ATAUSTIN« WITH SUPPORT FROM THE W K KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

 
   

  

Measuring Institutional Effectiveness:

An Incremental Approach

The assessment of institutional effectiveness has
received increasing attention in recent years.
Postsecondary institutions have engaged in a variety of
assessment activities, ranging from evaluating instruc-
tional programs and services to assessing student achieve-
ment. These assessment activities often provide informa-
tion for improving instruction and services to students, as
well as meeting the requirements of external accreditation
and funding agencies.

Vincennes University, Indiana’s only comprehensive
two-year college, is not a typical junior college. More than
85 percent of Vincennes University’s students are full-
time, one-third live in campus residence halls, and the
average age is 19.6 years. V.U. uses multiple measures to
monitor institutional effectiveness, and several of its most
eo measures are described here.

Orientation Survey

This survey is conducted during summer orientation
and collects information supplemental to the demographic
information already on the database. The survey collects
three types of information: effectiveness of the university
recruitment and marketing program, attitudes and
expectations about life at V.U., and educational goals.

Responses to questions about the effectiveness of
recruitment tell us if there are certain populations that are
not being reached well, such as students who have been
out of school for more than two years. They also tell us if
there are major shifts in the incoming population and
confirm that V.U.’s major service area contains many
small towns within a 30-mile radius of Vincennes, Indiana.

Responses to questions about expectation tell us that
the incoming students expect to study very hard (12 or
more hours a week) and that most of them realistically
expect to need some help with mathematics and perhaps
with study skills. Students also optimistically expect to
earn significantly higher grades than they did in high
school.

Answers to questions relating to educational goals
provide the best indentifier of those students who come to
=g@_, VU. but do not seek an associate degree. They plan to
@® =p: a single course or a single semester or year

before transferring to a four-year college or university.
Various ways to incorporate this information into the
required “Student Right-to-Know” data currently are
being sought.

A side benefit of the orientation survey is the identifica-
tion of students who participated in band, choir, drama,
the student newspaper, or student government in high
school. These names and addresses are sent immediately
to the appropriate campus office. Students are contacted
with a personal letter and /or call inviting them to partici-
pate in the corresponding V.U. activity.

Placement Testing

V.U. has an extensive mandatory placement testing
program which is required of all students whose SAT (or
corresponding ACT) scores are not available or fall below
predetermined cutoff levels. Computerized “adaptive
placement tests” are administered during the orientation.
During the first week of classes, several departments
administer departmental exams to ensure again the
appropriateness of placement.

Student Success in Courses

At the end of each term, a comprehensive Student
Success in Courses analysis is prepared. This analysis
identifies courses where more than 20 percent of the
students withdrew and where less than 66 percent of the
students earned passing grades of A, B, C, or P. Semester-
to-semester changes are noted. For multiple section
courses, instructor-related and time-of-day analyses are
performed on requcst.

This information, when combined with success-in-next-
course data, success within the major at transfer institu-
tions, and grade distribution in comparable courses at the
primary institutions to which our students transfer, are
important aspects of monitoring articulation agreements
and transfer success, as well as safeguarding against grade
inflation.

Student Success by Placement Category
All full-time students entering college for the first time
are categorized by placement into one of five categories:

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
Community College Leadership Program, Department of Educational Administration
College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712