Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE) Annual Conference
June 5-8, 2018
Charlie Blaich and Kathy Wise presented “In the Long Run: Gathering Evidence from Alumni to Improve Your Institution’s Educational Impact” at the Annual Conference of the Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education.
Abstract:
Many of the broader learning outcomes that we seek for students are only fully realized in the years after they complete their degrees. Life-long learning, critical inquiry, civic engagement, and other liberal learning outcomes are fully and consequentially expressed in the lives of students after they graduate. In this session, we will demonstrate how institutions can use survey data and qualitative evidence to develop actionable information about the undergraduate experiences that promote the post-college realization of these outcomes.
While many institutions collect information on important post-college labor market outcomes, fewer use alumni perceptions of the pedagogies and good practices that promote the post-graduate attainment of broad outcomes.
In this session, which is aimed at assessment professionals who are examining the impact of undergraduate experiences on broad learning outcomes, we will:
- Review the evidence from a multi-institution survey and a qualitative study on the relationship between the different undergraduate pedagogies and good practices experienced by alumni and outcomes in their post-college lives; and
- Review the strengths and weakness of each approach, and provide examples of the kinds of reporting and data summaries that have, and have not, made the evidence from these inquiries actionable.