Institutional and Program Assessment
Definition
Institutional and program assessment are processes that contribute to improvement and shared learning by providing meaningful feedback to faculty, staff, and various publics about patterns of student and alumnae performance on a range of educational outcomes.
(Definition from Alverno College Institute.)
College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Assessment Report
The College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences systematically assesses its program and curricular outcomes using the following sources:
ALUMNI:
A comprehensive study of alumni is conducted every two years post graduation. Outcomes examined include employment characteristics, pursuit of residencies and fellowships, organizational involvement, and the graduates' perception of how well their education prepared them to meet each professional and practice outcome per the School's Curricular Outcomes Document. In addition the graduates are also assessed for satisfaction with specific components of the classroom and experiential curriculum, faculty, administration and support services.
GRADUATING CLASS:
Graduating Doctor of Pharmacy students complete an exit survey each year to provide information regarding practice site/residency intentions. They also provide feedback on their satisfaction with specific components of the classroom and experiential curriculum, faculty administration and support services.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BOARDS OF PHARMACY (NABP):
The NABP provides data on Mercer graduates' performance on the licensure examination.
STUDENTS:
Traditional course evaluations are conducted in all required courses. Innovations adopted by the College in the area of instructor evaluation by students include use of focus groups/ombudsmen and "free writes" to provide assessment and resultant adjustments early in a course.
The ongoing evaluation of the curriculum is conducted by the Curriculum Committee. This committee meets monthly to review curricular structure, content and process. The Curriculum Committee is currently auditing the curriculum to assess where and how each professional and practice outcome is addressed in the curriculum.
Each full-time, teaching faculty member is peer reviewed twice/year and also serves as a peer reviewer, providing assessments of faculty teaching.
Student evlaution of teaching occurs once per year for every Faculty Member. Faculty also receive aggregate teaching evaluation scores for the pharmacy school and their respective departments to assist in their self-assessment.
Committee on Institutional & Program Assessment
In fall 1998, a committee on Institutional and Program Assessment (IPA) was formed to further develop and formalize assessment activities at the School.
IPA Committee Goals:
Assess the performance of our graduates with respect to professional and practice outcomes with the goal of gathering information for programmatic adjustments.
Collaborate with faculty to assess the abilities of students to meet professional and practice outcomes with the goal of gathering information for programmatic adjustments.
Collaborate with faculty and students to make students responsible for demonstration of outcomes.
Maintain a comprehensive data base containing the results of all assessments of the Doctor of Pharmacy Program conducted at the College.
