Transcript Slide 1

The Outcomes Assessment
Process Applied to International
Students: An Important Yet
Undeveloped Tool
Fred Hildebrand, SUNY Morrisville
and Peter Thomas, System Administration
Stakeholders
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Parents
Students
Administrators
Faculty
Natural Sciences
• Mathematics
• Sciences
Social Sciences
• Sociology
• Psychology
History
• American History
• Western Civilization
• Other World Civilization
Humanities
• The Arts
• Humanities
Languages
• Foreign Language
• Basic Communication
Competencies
• Information Management
• Critical Thinking
Purpose of Assessment
• Accountability
• Improvement
The fact that international students
differ from native students leads to
the conclusion that outcomes
assessments need to be more
discretely focused.
We seek to answer two questions:
1) What has SUNY done for the student?
Adapt Open Doors questions:
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Student satisfaction with sojourn
Gains in language proficiency
Academic achievement gains
Gains in personal development
Gains in intercultural proficiency
Career-oriented outcomes
2) What has the student done for SUNY?
Institutional impact such as
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Curricular reform
Marketing of the institution
Financial effects
Impact on enrollment and retention
Effects on faculty
But … how to get that information
from a population of widely varying
backgrounds?
Many mechanisms exist in the
international education sphere, but
none is exactly on point.
Various Techniques
and Instruments
• Bolen – Transnational competencies, plus
– Need demographic data baseline – separate experience and background
– Add standard demographic measures to filter – Age, Ethnicity, Race,
Religion, Semester level, Socioeconomic status, Home city/country
• Corbitt – Global Awareness Profile (GAP Test)
• Meyers and Kelly – Cross-Cultural Adaptability Inventory
(CCAI)
• Bennett – Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI)
• Middle States – Broad range of examples
To build an appropriate assessment
process, we need to:
– Better understand/describe the
incoming international student, then
– Create a more appropriate assessment
mechanism to gauge outcomes
Our selection process for
international students is not too
different from the generic,
and the integration of international
students into our mainstream has
meant little discrete baseline
information
Look to the examples of entities around the
world that have addressed the issue of
internationalization and analogize
Multiple benefits:
– Better assessment processes
– Well-tuned links with overseas partners
• Study Abroad/Exchange
• Transfer and Articulation
• Middle States overseas initiatives
There are a good number of
approaches to explore …
Canada
UK
US
CICIC
EU
Socrates/Erasmus
Lisbon Credential Recognition
ECTS
Tuning Program
TEEP
Council of Validating Universities
IESMAP
WES
Middle States
Canadian Information Centre for
International Credentials (CICIC)
• General Guiding Principles for Good Practice in
the Assessment of Foreign Credentials
• Broadly framed .. Education/jobs/professional
practice
• Looks into the status of an institution and
underlying program as well as the credential
Council of
Validating Universities
A very comprehensive system in the
UK that ensures quality and
predictability in the operation of
student exchange programs
Institute for the International
Education of Students (IES)
• IES/MAP – Model Assessment Practice – Developed as a
mode of assessing Study Abroad students
• International and cross-cultural program components
• Three challenges:
– Mission/goals per cross cultural learning experience
– Non-academic elements
– Differing academic cultures
• Set of standards for assessment
World Education
Services (WES)
A very active provider of a range of
support services in the admissions
and transfer fields
Middle States
Increasingly active in the inclusion of
overseas universities in the
accreditation process, thus building
linkages with assessment of learning
outcomes
Socrates/Erasmus
• Longstanding program supporting/facilitating
student and teacher mobility
• Full academic recognition agreed before
departure
• Joint curricula
– Joint development of “study programs”
– Joint development of “European
modules”
– Implementation and dissemination of
curricular development projects
• Linkage with ECTS (especially Learning
Agreement)
• Thematic Networks – Define and develop a
European dimension within a given academic
discipline or study area (departments, schools,
associations, professional bodies, other partners
and student organizations
Lisbon Credential
Recognition System
• Per Lisbon Convention, parties can create a
standardized supplement to a diploma
• Easily understandable and correctable data
about the person and his/her attainments
• Useful for benchmarking
ECTS
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Pre-agreed equivalence
Credits based on notional year
Learning Agreement
Nuance-rich vis-à-vis
accommodating disparate students
Tuning Program
• European program to “tune” education systems
• Seven subject areas: Business, Educational Sciences,
Geology, History, Math, Physics, Chemistry; 101 university
departments in 16 countries
• Research on generic and subject-specific skills and
competencies
• Generic competences comprise: Instrumental,
Interpersonal, Systemic
• Specific: Skills, Knowledge, Content
Instrumental competences
• Capacity for analysis and synthesis
• Capacity for organization and planning
• Basic general knowledge
• Grounding in basic knowledge of the profession
• Oral and written communication in your native
language
• Information management skills (ability to retrieve
and analyse information from different sources)
• Knowledge of a second language
• Elementary computing skills
• Problem solving
• Decision-making
Tuning
Interpersonal competences
• Critical and self-critical abilities
• Teamwork
• Interpersonal skills
• Ability to work in an interdisciplinary team
• Ability to communicate with experts in other fields
• Appreciation of diversity and multicultural aspects
• Ability to work in an international context
• Ethical commitment
Tuning
Systemic competences
• Research skills
• Capacity to learn
• Capacity for applying knowledge in practice
• Capacity to adapt to new situations
• Capacity for generating new ideas (creativity)
• Leadership
• Ability to work autonomously
• Project design and management
• Initiative and entrepreneurial spirit
• Concern for quality
• Understanding of cultures and customs of other countries
• Will to succeed
Tuning
• Looks at educational structures and content of studies, not
educational systems
• Methodology is designed to understand curricula and make
them comparable (via Learning Outcomes and
competences) – described in terms of reference points to be
met
• The Learning Agreement is the baseline for assessment
• Level qualifications have been developed, giving rise to, e.g.,
the EuroBachelor in Chemistry
Tuning
Assessment includes:
– Written exams (predominant mode); Oral exams;
Lab reports; Problem-solving exercises; Oral
presentations; Bachelor’s Thesis
Plus
– Literature survey and evaluation’
– Collaborative work
– “Posters”
Tuning
• Basic Question:
Can a single set of criteria and elements of an
assessment system suffice in a multicultural,
multinational context, absent special actions, driven
by the heterogeneity of the students
• Phase 4 is now getting underway. Including the
Assessment elements of the Tuning Program, it will
be a key mechanism for answering the question
Tuning
TEEP Project
• Transnational European Evaluation Project (TEEP)
• Flows from the Bologna-based European Higher Education
Area process; built on the Tuning program
• Promoter of Quality Assurance with a view to develop
comparable criteria and methodologies
• Draws support from the Socrates/Erasmus thematic
networks in History, Physics, and Veterinary Science
• Seeks to develop a European methodology for the use of
common criteria and Quality Assurance at the European
level
• Develops a transnational external evaluation scheme of
program review building on a focus on competences and
learning outcomes
• Incorporates a self-evaluation process as a starter – plus
a site visit
TEEP
NEXT STEP ….
Increased dialogue and sharing of
data/information on international
students and the assessment of their
performance
CICIC
CVU
http://www.cicic.ca/indexe.stm
http://www.cvu.ac.uk
IESMAP
WES
http://www.iesabroad.org
http://www.wes.org/
Middle States
http://www.msache.org/
Socrates/Erasmus
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/socrates/socrates_en.html
Lisbon Recognition Convention
http://www.cepes.ro/information_services/sources/on_line/lisbon.htm
ECTS
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/socrates/ects_en.html
Tuning Program
TEEP
http://www.relint.deusto.es/TUNINGProject/index.htm
http://www.enqa.net/pubs.lasso