Assessment Highlights for the M.B.A. Program
The School of Business established a set of program goals and learning outcomes and collects assessment data to measure student achievement of these outcomes. In 2008-2009, we started assessment of general skills, after completing a cycle of assessing outcomes related to knowledge and skills in areas of business. We focused on assessment of the presentation skills outcome and had ten faculty members participate in the evaluation of presentation skills in a core M.B.A. course. The faculty developed assessment forms and used benchmarks to evaluate individual student performance and establish whether the student achievement in an outcome is Exemplary, Satisfactory, or Unsatisfactory. The results of this assessment were very strong as at least fifty percent of the students achieved the Exemplary level in each component of the outcome, and all students achieved the Satisfactory level in each component of the outcome.
The School also used the ETS Major Field Test for M.B.A. to measure the knowledge and skills of all graduates. The results of this national standardized ETS test taken by the graduates allow for comparison of our graduates to national norms. Overall, the School’s graduates performed strongly on this national test in 2008-2009. There were 19 graduates taking the test and the mean performance for the cohort was at the 85th percentile compared to all institutions participating in the ETS testing nationally. This sample includes 15,954 students at 199 institutions.
The following are assessment highlights:
• Mission, Program Goals and Learning Outcomes are established and reviewed
• Course-embedded assessment data is collected every school year
• External standardized testing with the ETS Major Field Test for M.B.A.
• Assessment Committee oversees all assessment activities
• Assessment results reviewed by all faculty in regular faculty meetings
• Coverage of learning outcomes verified by periodic syllabi checks
• Other activities include periodic surveys of graduates
