If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try Closing Another Assessment Loop: Implementing Online Co-Curricular Assessment

Abstract

Higher education institutions are commonly tasked with demonstrating student learning in and out of the classroom. Although academic and student affairs share a common goal of supporting student success, they frequently do not speak the same assessment language. This lack of alignment can lead to miscommunication and missed opportunities to collaboratively promote learning and achievement. Further, it can be a struggle to implement assessment protocols if institutional stakeholders do not value and believe in the importance of their role in the assessment process. In this paper, we discuss how professionals at an online academic success center used the Theory of Planned Behavior to inform and improve an assessment protocol as part of the institution’s overall assessment plan. The steps and strategies used over multiple assessment loops are discussed to demonstrate the path taken to build a collaborative learning environment for students in and out of the online classroom.