Assessment Purpose Statement: East Arkansas Community College’s assessment efforts support the mission, promote the achievement of the vision, and are articulated throughout all levels of student learning to help guide the college’s continuous improvement of student learning outcomes.

Assessment Planning Process

East Arkansas Community College’s assessment process is an institution-wide effort allowing the College to document effectiveness and show commitment to continuous improvement. Assessment promotes student success by providing the necessary evidence to guide effective decision making across multiple levels, including course, program, and institution.

Mapping Student Learning Objectives

• Class/Course Level Assessment
  Course Level Student Learning Objectives (CLO’s) are the foundation of EACC’s assessment process. Course level assessment outcomes are uploaded to the Assessment of Student Learning Annual Report, where CLO’s are hierarchically articulated to articulated discipline-level learning objectives.
• Discipline Level Assessment
  Course-level learning objective data is used to determine achievement percentages for student learning goals. The College’s hierarchically articulated course and discipline objectives simplify data gathering, thus simplifying the way EACC collects, analyzes, and acts upon assessment data. Co-curricular assessment data is aggregated at the discipline-level as well, with individual co-curricular programs providing service-level assessment of student engagement outcomes.
• Institutional Level Assessment
  The College is committed to student success, and EACC’s articulated learning objectives allow the College to monitor this achievement across several levels of student learning. Course-level data is aggregated into discipline-level learning objectives that articulate with hierarchically linked Core Competencies of Student Success, providing assessment of student achievement across all levels of student learning. In addition to CLO and DLO data, the College also assesses the achievement and budgeting toward specific strategic priority goals.

Integrated Assessment, Effectiveness, Planning, and Budgeting

The Assessment, Effectiveness, Planning, and Budgeting Process at East Arkansas Community College is a dynamic, mapped process of collaborative practices. EACC assesses, determines effectiveness, plans, and budgets to provide continuous improvement, accountability, and transparency in accomplishing our mission of providing an accessible, affordable, quality education that transforms the lives of our students, enriches our communities and strengthens the regional economy.

Assessment Process

The assessment process should answer three questions: What are we trying to do? How well are we doing it? And how are we using the data to improve? 

Faculty members and program directors provide course-level student learning objective (CLO) data each semester by submitting a Course Assessment Form on or before the date grades are due. Each course or co-curricular program has clearly mapped CLOs that are linked to appropriate discipline-level student learning objectives (DLO). Discipline specific learning objectives are clearly mapped to appropriate Core Competencies. The DLO is an articulation between course and service level student learning and the much broader goals of the College’s Core Competencies.

In addition to CLO data, the assessment reporting process includes data submitted on the ongoing efforts of each institutional committee. Those committees report outcome data from the Strategic Priority’s sub-goals by semester, and those results are included in the assessment plan’s measure for achievement of the Institution’s Strategic Priorities. The assessment of institutional goals also includes budget allocation measurement by requiring faculty and staff to include justification for budgeted funds based on an appropriate course or discipline learning outcome (content), or a strategic priority (process).

This process provides the ASLEC a clear picture of student achievement across all levels of student learning and engagement. Each spring, the ASLEC produces an Annual Assessment of Student Learning and Engagement Report that is submitted to the President’s Executive Cabinet with comments.

A triennial Closing the Loop report aggregates each of the previous three year annual report’s into a longitudinal process of continuous improvement to student learning, and presents a broader reflection of the content and quality of data collected, as well as the effectiveness of the evidence provided through the collection of data. The triennial report aligns with the College’s strategic planning efforts, providing the Institutional Planning Committee with valuable data to help guide the implementation of the College’s Strategic Priorities.

Assessment of the Core Components 

Assessment is a critical component to the institutional planning process. Assessment data is used to monitor the College’s progress toward achieving the goals set forth by our shared strategic priorities in support of the mission and vision statements. The College’s Strategic Priorities, developed by faculty, staff, students, and the community, are assessed alongside course and discipline level student learning outcomes. In addition to measurements obtained through the achievement of the College’s strategic priorities, the College also assesses the allocation of institutional funds to support ongoing initiatives.