Assessment in Times of the Unexpected
Wow, our lives have been turned upside down in the last month. Lots of uncertainty. Lots of change. Lots of messages, sometimes changing daily or hourly. Did I mention lots [...]
Words are Hard: Creating Good Survey Questions
One of the most frequent tasks the staff in Student Life Studies do is helping people design good survey questions. It’s a science and an art, it takes practice and [...]
A Picture is Worth a Number of Words
I have been thinking about fun assessment methods to get the year started…you know, try something new and different, take a risk, all that good stuff. Although it is a [...]
Student Life Studies Services
If you are new to the Division of Student Affairs at Texas A&M, you might not know what Student Life Studies (SLS) is or does on a daily basis. Here’s [...]
Closing the Loop: Reassessing for Confirmation
Assessment professionals use the term “close the loop” a lot. (The irony is that if it is a loop, it is already closed.) The gist is that you reassess the [...]
The Role of the Institutional Review Board*
Every now and then, Student Life Studies’ staff gets asked, “Does this project need to go to the Institutional Review Board (IRB)? Every now and then, Student Life Studies’ staff [...]
Change is Hard
Change. It’s hard. People don’t like it. It causes disruption. It’s hard. It causes conflict. It takes too much time. It’s hard….Okay, now that we have that out of the [...]
Reflections on the Student Success in Higher Education Conference
Last month, I attended the new NASPA Student Success in Higher Education Conference. It combined four conferences in one: Closing the Achievement Gap, Student Financial Wellness, First-Generation Student Success, and [...]
Documenting Your Assessment
It’s the end of the year. Whoop! You might be taking a well-deserved breather or already in the planning mode for next year. Either way, don’t forget to document what [...]
What I Learn from Program Reviews
Recently, I was asked to review a relatively new student affairs assessment office at a different institution using the CAS Standards (https://www.cas.edu/). I have done program reviews before, and they [...]