QEP Assessment

How is the QEP Assessed?

The coordinator of the QEP will oversee implementation and modifications to the assessment plan with the support of the Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Support Services. Other campus offices will contribute expertise and resources to support assessment. These offices include the Center of Retention and Enrichment Services and the Office of Institutional Research.

We will track the students in the academic coaching program until their graduation, with particular attention to retention and performance measures one semester and one-year after the onset of academic coaching. Individual coaches and the QEP coordinator will keep records for each student detailing their level of participation in academic coaching throughout the semester.

The assessment plan is summarized here according to each student learning outcome.

As reflected in Table 1, items from the Student Strengths Inventory (SSI) will be used to assess achievement of two QEP student learning outcomes: "Students will demonstrate an increase in academic self-efficacy" and "Students will express a sense of connection and/or engagement to the institution." The SSI is a questionnaire that measures six non-cognitive factors that have been demonstrated to predict persistence and ultimate graduation. One factor, academic self-efficacy, is a measure of students' confidence in their ability to succeed at college, and the second factor, campus engagement, measures the extent to which students are involved on campus as well as their sense of belonging. The University of Memphis will administer the SSI to all participants prior to the onset of academic coaching and again at the end of semester.

Students' use of UMdegree plan and Degree Compass will be used to assess achievement of the learning outcome, "Students will demonstrate an ability to utilize technology tools for degree planning." As a comprehensive assessment of the learning outcome, "Students will identify a career goal and academic pathway to that goal," students will utilize the Focus 2 Inventory (a self-paced, online career assessment tool) and provide the Focus 2 Inventory results, along with their UMdegree plan and Degree Compass results, to their academic coaches.

To assess the learning outcome, "Students will identify and describe appropriate campus resources for psychosocial and academic needs," a locally developed rubric will be used that requires students to match the appropriate campus office to the student need (Appendix H).

Finally, the learning outcome, "Students will demonstrate adequate progress to degree program" will be evaluated primarily in terms of semester GPA, but also earned hours and retention to the subsequent semester. The assessment strategy for the continuing freshmen on Academic Warning will be a pre/post design, comparing the metrics before and after the academic coaching intervention. The assessment of the first-time freshmen will employ comparisons of matched cohorts in each population who did and did not participate in academic coaching.