Since its inception in 1969, the College of Nursing (CON) has been developing, carrying out, and evaluating its assessment plan to improve its educational program. The college has many years' data to champion its ability to teach undergraduate nurses necessary knowledge and skills for a rapidly changing world. It is a worthwhile long-term project. Stephanie Stewart, Undergraduate Program Director and member of the CON Undergraduate Assessment Committee attributes this remarkable progress to the nursing profession's accreditation process. The National League of Nursing Accreditation Program and CCNE have required rigorous performance criteria for nurses for many years, while many educational institutions have just begun to see the great benefits of program assessment for their students.
Dr. Stewart, long involved in development of collegiate assessment programs, says, "Our students are being assessed out in the world, so we ought to be assessing ourselves." One of the best ways to do that is through Continuous Quality Improvement and serious self-examination by a college or department.
One of the most gratifying aspects of CON's well-developed program is knowing that courses the undergraduate nursing students often report as uninspiring, uninteresting, or unproductive are the courses they say are most important once they are in the field. She says the faculty know that lower Student Opinion Survey (SOS) scores in those courses do not indicate poor quality; the courses are justified by the attitudes revealed by nurses in the field.
Honest assessment of their educational program is rewarding, also, when students' ratings of the capstone/culminating performance course are extremely positive. This final course is based on skill mastery-to-criterion, and although a few students must repeat it until they master them, exiting students highly approve of the course.
Dr. Stewart reports that multiple evaluation tools are essential and that data from all of them are equally useful in making programmatic decisions. However, CON has found that surveying employers was difficult and the low return did not justify their use. Therefore, CON has discontinued them.
The evaluation methods that remain productive are outcome measures, which include standardized critical thinking tests, teacher made oral communication tests, and standardized tests for designing nursing interventions. A capstone performance course is an important evaluation tool; not as important, but useful, are the diagnostic elements of the National Council Licensure Examination that CON reviews.
In addition, CON requires student evaluations of course content beyond the SOS's, and presents these evaluations to its research office and program directors for analysis, rather than to the faculty. In this case, programmatic changes are a product of objective assessment by administrators.
All assessment instruments are based on CON course goals and objectives. The goals represent the mission of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (UW Oshkosh) and CON. Therefore, surveys of exiting undergraduates' and graduates' attitudes toward their education at UW Oshkosh are founded upon those same goals and objectives. Nurses and student nurses respond to such questions as: "How well do you believe the course met its objectives? What are the strengths of the whole nursing program? What are its weaknesses?" CON also appraises the professional growth and lifelong learning of alumnae through surveys of their professional advancement, further education, honors, and contributions to the field.
Dr. Stewart suggests that educational programs embarking upon assessment design spend a great deal of time determining the goals and performance objectives for their students. Further, she says the college or department must be committed to a continuous, long range, step-by-step process that is imbedded in faculty responsibilities.
As a result of CON's committment to assessment from the start, it has not required assistance from UW Oshkosh's Senate Committee on Assessment. However, Dr. Stewart stressed the importance of a supportive university committee, because programs should develop assessment plans. The rewards of on-going program assessment are great for faculty, students, and the community.
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Last updated: November 8, 2000