* Continued Development of General Education Assessment.  OSU is in its sixth year of implementing a general education assessment plan.  Institutional portfolios have now been developed for assessment of writing, science problem-solving, mathematics problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.  This year, the assessment of writing was expanded to include providing sub-scores on three components of writing: content, organization, and style/mechanics, in addition to an overall score.  Although this process takes more time and reduces the number of artifacts that can be reviewed each year, faculty believe that this will provide more useful information for guiding change to improve students’ writing ability.  The critical thinking assessment rubric also follows the component scoring model.  This year, a rubric was developed for assessment of students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding diversity; an institutional portfolio for this assessment will be developed in 2007. 

* Professional Development Sessions for Faculty and Assessment Coordinators.  The Assessment Council and the General Education Assessment Committee provided a series of professional development sessions for faculty in 2005-06.  In Fall 2005, the following sessions were offered to faculty:  “A Model for Program Learning Outcomes Assessment,” “Assessment of Graduate Program Learning,” and “Graduate Program Outcomes Assessment – Part II.”  In Spring 2006, two sessions were presented and had good participation from faculty:  “Assessment of the Diversity Learning Goal” with the General Education Assessment Committee, and a workshop on “Development and Assessment of Critical Thinking Skills,” with Gary Brown, Director of the Center for Learning, Teaching and Technology at Washington State University. 

* Assessment Council Reviews of Programs Outcomes Assessment Integrated with Academic Program Review Process.  Plans and reports of learning outcomes assessment for each degree program are reviewed by the Assessment Council one year in advance of the program’s participation in the Academic Program Review (APR) process.  The APR process now requests documentation of assessment activities, so this schedule modification allows for feedback from the Assessment Council well in advance of the Academic Program Review.  In Fall 2005, the Council reviewed and provided feedback on program outcomes assessment to those programs scheduled for Academic Program Review in 2007. 

* 2005 National  Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).  NSSE assesses the extent to which students take part in educationally sound activities and the institutional policies and practices that induce students to take part in such activities.  NSSE is administered and coordinated by the Indiana University Center for Post-Secondary Research and Planning.  Oklahoma State University participated in the NSSE for the third time in 2005; OSU also participated in 2002 and in the inaugural NSSE in 2000.   A total of 1639 OSU students classified as freshmen or seniors completed the 2005 NSSE, resulting in a response rate of 38%.   A summary of results is included in Appendix C of this report; a full report of results is available on the University Assessment and Testing (UAT) website (www.uat.okstate.edu).

* 2006 Survey of Alumni of Undergraduate Programs.  The fourth university-wide survey of alumni of OSU graduate programs was conducted in January 2006.  Results from these alumni surveys have become a cornerstone of the assessment efforts for many OSU academic units and provide valuable information about the career patterns of recent graduates.  See Appendix D for highlights of the survey; a complete report of results is available on the UAT website.