#23378
Thank You, Thank You! Or: How External Reviewers Help Out
Conversations about assessment for technical communication programs often focus on evaluating features internally, through means such as course evaluations and portfolio reviews.
Rehling, Louise. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Assessment
#19462
Three Worlds of Online Education: Evaluation of Commercial Courses 
Courses delivered over the World Wide Web, are an important element in today’s training programs. You can evaluate them by analyzing their content, handling of audience, interactivity, and cost.
Murphy, Avon J. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Online>Assessment
#30839
Using a Client Memo to Assess Critical Thinking of Finance Majors 
This article describes a holistic, discourse-based method for assessing the critical thinking skills of undergraduate senior-level finance majors. Rejecting a psychometric assessment approach in which component features of critical thinking are disaggregated, this study is based on a holistic scoring of student memos. Students were asked to recommend and justify a course of action to a lay client facing an ill-structured finance problem. Analysis of student memos reveals critical thinking weaknesses that may be ameliorated by changes in assignments or instructional methods. The memos reveal four kinds of critical thinking problems: (a) failure to address the client's problem, (b) random rather than purposeful application of finance tools and methodologies, (c) inability to translate finance concepts or methods into lay language, and (d) inability to construct rhetorically useful graphics. The curricular implications of this study are discussed.
Carrithers, David and John C. Bean. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Assessment
#29088
Using Corporate-Based Methods to Assess Technical Communication Programs
Assessment continues to be an important issue for technical communicators in both practitioner and academic contexts. In this article, we investigate methods of program assessment used by corporate learning sites and we profile value add methods as a new way to both construct and evaluate academic programs in technical communication. Our goal is to introduce value added assessment methods as one way to supplement and expand current methods of program assessment. The article initially reviews Return on Investment (ROI) indicators as a widely used model for assessing programs. However, we are critical of these indicators, suggesting that they are biased against technical communication in both practitioner and academic contexts. The article then examines and critiques assessment methods from corporate training environments. These include methods employed by corporate universities and value added process-based assessment methods. The second half of the article profiles value added methods by applying them in a brief assessment of a technical communications certificate program. We conclude that while the program uses ROI indicators as a marketing device, the value the program brings and adds to its university is the "portal" it creates for university and business community collaboration. This value cannot be fully demonstrated solely through the use of ROI indicators. The article then discusses the kinds of programmatic negotiations value added processes require within university contexts that may impose non-value added activities on departments and programs. The article concludes by critically examining the appropriateness of corporate assessment methods for academic contexts.
Faber, Brenton D., Linn Bekins and Bill Karis. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Education>Assessment
#13916
Using Portfolios to Evaluate Service Courses as Part of an Engineering Writing Program
Assessing the efficacy of technical communication service courses is a complex task, yet it is a task that service course providers should embrace as an opportunity to learn more about student and faculty needs and to update and improve curricula. This assessment has become more immediate for many educators because of ABET 2000 (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), a comprehensive revamping of the way engineering programs are accredited. ABET 2000 criteria require that engineering programs provide evidence of the efficacy of all instruction, including communication. When the new ABET criteria were released, we had already begun a comprehensive evaluation of not only our service courses but also the total writing experience of engineering students at the University of Washington. This paper gives a theoretical rationale for a portfolio evaluation project and describes a directly applicable structure and procedure for such a project.
Scott, Cathie and Carolyn Plumb. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>Education>Engineering>Assessment
#31669
What Do We Gain by Assessment?
The question, what do we gain by assessment, is one that has been asked more and more often by engineering educators. They ask the question even as the changes in accreditation brought on by ABET, Inc. and the Engineering Criteria have been cemented in programs both in the United States and abroad.
Williams, Julia M. IEEE PCS (2008). Articles>Education>Assessment>Engineering
#31375
This hypertext examines from an activity theory perspective the vexed problem of assessment and its relation to planning, accountability, curriculum, and learning. Assessment although only part of the educational process has implications for almost all of education. Local, state, and federal policies that have put great weight and high stakes on a battery of assessment tools that stand outside the daily life of the classroom but are intended to hold classrooms, teachers, and schools accountable for results. While situated evaluation is an aspect of most human practices, institution-wide testing creates substantial difficulties for the local practices of each class, and particularly creates tensions between student-centered classroom practice and subject-centered expectations. Such tensions have been a continuing puzzle for progressive education. Dewey and his followers regularly preferred to keep evaluation and decision-making local, but for various institutional reasons had to seek larger ways of assessing student achievement without ever being able to develop fully appropriate assessment tools. The teaching of writing has faced a similar dilemma, with standardized forms of writing assessment setting reductionist definitions and expectations of writing, and not directing students towards the highest levels of accomplishment. This study considers genre and activity analysis as the basis for defining and assessing writing tasks through analysis of materials collected from a complex sequence of social studies writing assignments on the Maya from a sixth grade class.
Bazerman, Charles. WAC Clearinghouse (2003). Articles>Education>Assessment>Activity Theory
#22191
Why Should We Be Exploring Accountability?
We probably need to think much more than we have in the past in terms of assessment, external evaluation, and accountability. We are hearing ever more frequently the concerns of administrators, regents, legislators, and departments of education for greater accountability by universities-concerns that will be passed down the administrative levels to program directors and teachers. This may be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to tell the public who we are and why we are important.
Savage, Gerald J. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>TC>Assessment
#23884
Why We Need More Assessment of Online Composition Courses: A Brief History
Online courses now command a prominent position in composition scholarship where we dream of democratized education and liberating literacies. But...
Charles, Cristie Cowles. Kairos (2002). Articles>Education>Assessment>Online
#32169
The authors' goal was to model the role played by the relationship between a writing teacher and her students in the feedback and revision cycle they experienced in an English-as-a-foreign-language context. Participants included a nonnative teacher of English and 14 students enrolled in her English writing class in a Korean university. Data came from formal, informal, and text-based interviews; semester-long classroom observations; and students' drafts with teacher comments. Findings showed that caring was enacted in complex and reciprocal ways, influenced by interwoven factors from the greater society, the course, the teacher, and the student. Students' level of trust in the teacher's English ability, teaching practices, and written feedback, as much as the teacher's trust in particular students based on how they revised their drafts, played a great role in the development of a caring relationship between them.
Lee, Given and Diane L. Schallert. Written Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Writing>Assessment
#33507
Methods and Results of an Accreditation-Driven Writing Assessment in a Business College
This article describes a pilot effort for an accreditation-driven writing assessment in a business college, detailing the pilot's logistics and methods. Supported by rubric software and a philosophy of "real readers, real documents," the assessment was piloted in summer 2006 with five evaluators who were English instructors and four who worked or taught in business environments. The nine evaluators were each given 10 reports that were drawn from a sample of 50 reports completed in a writing-intensive course. They created 88 individual assessments using a 10-category rubric. While the overarching purpose of the pilot was to determine the effectiveness of the methods used, the results may also be of interest to those involved with the assessment of writing.
Warnock, Scott. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>Education>Assessment>Methods
#33569
A Technology Transfer Model for Program Assessment in Technical Communication
In this article we seek to reframe accountability by means of an emphasis not on auditing but on student performance, not on the development of databases but on the creation of reflective practice. We attempt to demonstrate one model of program assessment that focuses on student performance as the center of a reflective assessment framework that can act as a technology transfer model for the diffusion of program assessment knowledge.
Coppola, Nancy W. and Norbert Elliot. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Education>Assessment>Technology Transfer
#35363
Discusses the potential of goal-based scenarios as an approach to designing online learning environments. Explores practical applications of goal-based scenarios for online training. Presents a procedural approach to designing a goal-based scenario.
Padmanabhan, Poornima. Technical Communication Online (2009). Articles>Education>Assessment
