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Indirect Measures for Assessing Student Learning

Using Entrance and Exit Surveys

Entrance Surveys

Some units use entrance surveys to collect information from students when they declare a major, minor, or certificate or even when they start their introductory coursework. In addition to providing information on students’ backgrounds and motivations, this is an opportunity to collect some baseline data on what students already know and can already do. Asking some questions in both entrance and exit surveys can be useful for tracking changes in students’ attitudes and ways of thinking.

Exit Surveys

Exit surveys of students approaching graduation can help departments and schools assess learning beyond the level of individual courses. These surveys can provide essential feedback on students’ experiences in a program and lead to changes that enhance the curriculum.

Some questions should be directly linked to learning objectives. For example, in one Northwestern program, each graduating student is interviewed by an adviser and asked to talk about how well each learning goal for the major was addressed in the courses he or she took. In larger units, an online survey may be more practical than interviews. Students can be asked to what extent they think they have achieved each learning goal as well as which department experiences were most relevant.

Sample Questions

  1. Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statement: I can interpret the results of complex experiments and think critically about their significance.
    (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree)
  2. What experiences in the department (courses, instructors, other activities) contributed most to your ability to interpret and critically think about experimental results?

Or, departments can ask students to reflect separately on achievement of each goal and then follow with general questions like the following: What aspects of your experiences as a major in our department were most useful in helping you to meet these objectives? What aspects of the major could be improved to assist future students in meeting these objectives?

Other questions can get at students’ knowledge and skills more directly. For example, they can be asked to read and respond to a short passage or to solve some problems. A committee of faculty members can then evaluate their performance from the perspective of learning objectives for the major.

An exit interview or exit survey is a chance to ask questions less closely tied to learning objectives, but still relevant for understanding and enhancing students’ experiences in the department. Possible questions include the following: Overall, how satisfied are you with your coursework in our department? What was the most influential course you took in the department? How did it influence you? How satisfied are you with the advising you received from your major or minor adviser? Did you participate in an internship or co-op experience related to your major? If yes, briefly describe the experience. What impact did it have on you? What are your educational plans for the first 10 years after graduation? What are your employment plans for the first 10 years after graduation?

When should students complete the survey?

Ideally, students should complete an exit survey shortly before they exit the program—when they are done, or nearly done, taking courses in the department, or shortly before they graduate. As a practical matter, some Northwestern departments have students complete an exit survey or interview when they do their Graduation Petitions. Thus, students graduating in June will complete the survey no later than the end of the preceding fall quarter.

Maintaining Survey Standards

In developing entrance and exit surveys, there are several standards to keep in mind:

  • Importance
    The overall importance of the survey. Does it provide useful information for academic planning purposes? Does it provide useful feedback to those providing services to students? Does it provide the University with useful information on the experience of students at Northwestern? Is the survey of national importance? Are other peer institutions conducting the survey, and will peer data be available?
  • Dissemination and Use of Information Collected
    Who will have access to the information collected and how will they use it? Will it be presented to the President, Provost, Vice-Presidents, Deans, Directors, and others who might be better informed in making decisions related to students as a result?
  • Content and Design of Survey
    Is the survey designed well? Is the content appropriate? Does it follow sound survey methods and practices? Is it of appropriate length? Are the questions easily understood and interpreted?
  • Population and Sampling Methodology
    What is the target population? Will the entire population be surveyed, or a sample? If the latter, what is the sampling methodology and is it sound? If the former, is a sample an option that should be considered to lessen the burden on students?
  • Timing
    When will the survey be conducted? Does it overlap with other student surveys? Is it conducted at a time during the academic year when students are likely to respond?

Surveying Alumni, Faculty Members, or Employers

Alumni surveys can provide additional information. Graduates of a program can be asked about their satisfaction with their undergraduate experiences, how well prepared they were for jobs or graduate schooling, and what aspects of your program contributed most to that preparation. Asking alumni what knowledge, skills, or ways of thinking have been most important to them after graduation can lead the faculty of a department to reflect on, and possibly revise, their curriculum and their learning objectives.

Learning From Student Transcripts

University students gain knowledge, skills, and new ways of thinking in many ways—through informal interactions with peers, through organized co-curricular activities, through required and elective coursework, and more. For departments offering a major, minor, or certificate, the primary way most students make progress on the learning objectives set for them is likely through taking courses. Inspecting student transcripts, looking in detail at which particular courses or categories of course they take, provides information on the extent to which they have been exposed to relevant learning experiences.

Suppose one learning objective for students in a major involves analyzing issues in that field from a range of disciplinary perspectives. It could then be informative to go through transcripts of graduating seniors and tally, for each, how many of his or her courses approached the issues primarily from an historical perspective, through literature, with a social science lens, and so forth. Discovering that many students chose to focus their studies in a particular domain might lead to instituting a requirement for a minimum number of courses from each of several lists; if most students are already gaining multi-disciplinary experiences, a formal constraint on their course choices is probably not needed.

As another example, if one learning objective for a major involves the acquisition of research skills and hands-on research experiences, a count of students’ enrollments in independent study courses will provide evidence regarding opportunities to acquire and apply such skills. Or, if one advanced research course is required, transcripts could be inspected to see how many students choose to do more than one such course.

As with other indirect measures of student learning, analysis of their transcripts will not show what they have actually learned. However, it can be a useful way to gain information on their opportunities to acquire the knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking that identified as important learning objectives.