Academic Assessment

Assessment of the achievement of the academic mission of the University of Washington is conducted in every School and College and at all levels of the institution. The scope of this activity is overseen by the Office of the Provost and summarized at UW Strategic Planning and Assessment.

The Office of Educational Assessment promotes improvement of educational practice at the University of Washington by supporting assessment of teaching and learning at the level of the classroom, academic program, college/school, and institution.

OEA Services

Assistance to departments in…

• Articulating goals for student learning, both course-based goals and goals for majors (see Assessment in the Majors).
• Identifying and carrying out direct and indirect methods for assessing those goals, such as curricular maps, surveys for graduating seniors, focus groups of majors, interview studies, and portfolio assessment.
• Assessing experimental courses.
• Analyzing and reporting assessment results.
• Using course evaluation data in making decisions relating to faculty merit, promotion, and tenure.
• Designing and conducting student surveys, including developing and administering questionnaires, sampling students, and analyzing and reporting responses. OEA also maintains the UW survey website coordinating administration of large-scale student surveys.

Course evaluations that…

• Inform faculty members about student perceptions of their classes singly and over time
• Provide chairs and deans with student ratings data to inform decisions relating to curricular development and faculty merit, promotion, and tenure.

Surveys about the student experience, including:

• UW alumni survey one year after graduation
• UW alumni survey five and ten years after graduation
• The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
• The Student Experience at the Research University (SERU)

University-wide studies that assess teaching and learning, such as:

• UW Senior Research Study (UW SRS), a focus group study examining the research experience of seniors in fifteen academic majors
• UW Study of Undergraduate Learning (UW SOUL), a four-year study tracking 304 undergraduates through their years in college
• UW Growth in Faculty Teaching Study (UW GIFTS), a study of how often faculty make changes in their teaching, what those changes are, and why they make them