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UB gets go-ahead on campus-based assessments plan
By MARY COCHRANE
Contributing Editor
Carol L. Tutzauer, director for assessment and assistant vice provost of undergraduate education, told the Faculty Senate Executive Committee yesterday that her office had received approval from SUNY's general education assessment review committee regarding its plan for strengthened campus-based assessment.
But the go-ahead was given with a caution, she added.
"I am pleased to announce that they are doubtful of our ability—they're not so sure we can do what we say we're going to do—but they are going to let us pilot our plan," Tutzauer said.
The hesitation occurs because UB is the only SUNY school with a plan to assess mathematics, writing and critical-thinking skills through a process that administers the GRE (Graduate Record Examination).
"One problem SUNY had with using the GRE is they did not believe it really matched the very specific SUNY learning outcomes. But in doing some research on the GRE, it looked like there were plenty of items that did match nicely onto those outcomes," Tutzauer said.
As a result, she will ask faculty groups to oversee selection of questions for the practice GRE that corresponds to the required SUNY learning outcomes.
Unlike other schools, the UB plan will gather annual data for each of the assessment cycle's three years, rather than assessing skills once during the three-year period.
Assessments will be made on a stratified sampling of 20 percent of undergraduates in each of three groups—traditional first-time, four-year freshmen; transfer students; and part-time students—who, once they are of advanced sophomore standing, will take a "practice" version of a GRE. These completed exams will be the basis for assessing skills.
Students then may register for a lottery for a chance to take an actual GRE or other graduate exam, such as the LSAT or MCAT, for free. Tutzauer said the cost of these exams will be paid for partially by the funds SUNY gives each school for assessment; her office still is determining how to pay for the remaining portion of the costs. Tutzauer said last year that administering graduate examinations is less expensive than other assessment methods.
Tutzauer reiterated that students who elect to take actual exams as a result of the lottery will be informed that their scores will become part of their student records. Members of the Faculty Senate had expressed concern last year that students might not understand the reporting policies of their scores. Under the regulations of the Educational Testing Service, which administers the exam, scores are good for five years after a test is taken, and are reported along with any future scores should a student elect to take the exam more than once.
Gayle Brazeau, associate dean for academic affairs, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, had several concerns about using the GRE, including giving students who are "only at advanced sophomore standing" an exam intended for juniors and seniors.
"The reason for that is that if students sign up to take the real thing, they usually sign up to do so in their junior year. So we'll do the workshops later in their sophomore years when most of the students have fulfilled their general education requirements," Tutzauer said. "I originally proposed to do it later, but there were a lot of objections to that because of the timing for students wanting to apply to graduate school, knowing they'd have to register in advance for the exams, and those types of things. So to try to make it best for the students, we brought it back a little ways to have the practice GRE a little sooner."
Brazeau also asked if there will be "exclusion criteria" for students who already have taken practice courses for the GRE.
"I will probably record whether they have, but we will not exclude them for that reason. I'm sure that SUNY would not like me purposefully excluding certain classes of students from the sample, but we'll certainly record that," Tutzauer said. "I suspect that will make a lot less difference than the testing companies probably claim, but we'll see."