Who are faculty assessment leaders?

Abstract

The role of faculty in gathering, analyzing and using student learning data is growing and changing, but still underrepresented in the higher education research literature. While faculty are often expected and required to participate in assessment work, some faculty go beyond assessment work as service to take leadership roles. Using data collected and analyzed through a multi-phase exploratory sequential mixed methods research design, we combine data from administrator surveys, faculty interviews and analysis of faculty CVs to describe the role of faculty who take leadership roles in assessment work on their campuses: faculty assessment leaders. In this paper, we examine how faculty assessment leaders came to the role, if and how they were trained or prepared for the role, and how they describe their work. We recommend that institutions who seek to promote faculty engagement in assessment take a strategic approach to developing faculty assessment leaders, providing them with training and recognizing and rewarding their leadership.

Keywords:

• Assessment
• faculty
• leadership
• mixed methods
• faculty development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Sarah Gordon is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Arkansas Tech University. She holds her Ph.D. in Research, Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics (REMS) from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Gordon has taught courses and published work in the areas of program evaluation, research methods, and assessment. Her research interests include perceptions of evaluation and assessment in P-12 and higher education, general education assessment, and diversity as a concept and learning outcome.

Dr. Elizabeth E. Smith is Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Tulsa whose research focuses on school-university partnerships, education policy, and the role faculty play in assessment in higher education. Through teaching, she prepares future educators to accurately, fairly, and creatively assess student learning and takes every opportunity to emphasize the inextricable relationship between education and equity. Smith completed an interdisciplinary PhD program in Public Policy with a focus on Education Policy and also has a Master’s degree in Higher Education and Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, all from the University of Arkansas.