Performance Criteria - The Missing Link in Assessment Chain for Continuous Program Improvement

Abstract

Assessment of an academic program continues to remain as a challenge for most of the engineering as well as technology programs. A successful assessment process depends on effective data collection for evaluation and continuous improvement. The weakness in this process is generally identified as Performance Criteria for each one of the harmonized student outcomes. An emphasis is given to address this issue with possible solutions to minimize the weakness and improve the continuous quality improvement process for successful accreditation. I. Introduction Assessment is an important step in the continuous quality improvement process for self- evaluation of an academic program as well as preparing for accreditation. In general the problem is either insufficient or excessive irrelevant data that does not lead to meaningful conclusions and actionable feedback. Relevant or effective data collection depends on defining performance criteria for each one of student outcomes to be evaluated. Performance criteria are a building block for continuous quality improvement and it describes specific knowledge or skill or value to demonstrate the achievement of outcomes. Since the assessment process is an open ended process, many levels exist in this process among various institutions. These levels are identified and possible solutions are suggested as typical performance criteria to each one of the outcomes given in ABET harmonized criterion 3 (a) through (k).