Assessment Resources

All CSULB faculty are required to provide student learning outcomes and appropriate assessments of those outcomes for the courses they teach. The links provided below are intended to assist you with assessment basics.

Content knowledge, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and technical ability can all be assessed. In fact, these types of assessments are included in most of our exams, laboratory reports, quizzes, papers, and other assignments.

When thinking about your course, take some time to think about how you specifically want to improve the course, and how that can be measured and analyzed. You can measure more than grades-- though overall final grade distribution (number of As-Fs), number of Ws, exam/quiz scores, performance on a particular problem/type of problem on an exam or assessment, class participation, performance on a large synthesis assignment like a paper or project, certainly are good items to consider.

Measuring Affect
You can study attitude as well as performance. Don't forget to reflect on your own affect—how do you feel about teaching now that you've made this change. Since we aren't as familiar about creating surveys about how students feel about learning, turn to these or other expert references as you tailor surveys to fit your learning goal needs.

The Affective Learning Scale by Jim McCroskey (PDF)
The background, scale items, and scoring instructions are all found within the text.

There are three offices at CSULB designed to support faculty and the university's assessment efforts. A description and link to each office website is provided below:

CSULB Institutional Research and Assessment Office: The mission of IR&A is to enhance University effectiveness with information and research to support academic planning, student success initiatives, program reviews and accreditation, and student perception of teaching. IR&A is also responsible for University compliance with mandated data requests from the California State University Office of the Chancellor, State and Federal governments. Numerous university data reports can be found at this site.

CSULB Program Review and Assessment Office: Helps departments and academic programs ensure students graduate with highly valued degrees by:

  • Supporting the scholarship of learning on campus
  • Assisting individuals working on learning objectives at the course level
  • Providing feedback to departments and programs about methods for assessing student learning at the program level and ensuring alignment with GE and institutional-level outcomes as well as WSCUC Core Competencies
  • Working with departments and programs to develop viable assessment plans
  • Working with the offices of Student Assessment and Institutional Research to assist the university in its core commitment to assess student success
  • Providing information about assessment activities such as conferences, websites, and e-learning opportunities

CSULB Student Affairs Assessment Office: CSULB collects many different types of data about our students and use these findings to improve our practices. On the pages of this website, you will see highlights of what we consider to be important characteristics and learning outcomes of our student body. The diversity of our programming is great, but we work for common purposes: to enhance the learning and development of our students, and help them succeed in accomplishing their goals.