Step Five—Using Your Data

The world is full of unanalyzed data. There is no point in adding your assessment data to that list. Given time constraints, if you don’t allow ample time for analysis and discussion of your data, and for design and implementation of any curricular or other changes that your data suggest, your assessment data will just lie in a drawer. This is demoralizing, frustrating, and pointless. It is not sustainable.


It can take months for a faculty to find time to get together to discuss the findings of an assessment project and to determine what they mean for the department. Faculty who have taken the lead on a particular project may wish to present the project findings at a departmental meeting, with ample time allowed for discussion. Alternatively, the results may be discussed at some length within a small group, with a summary and recommendations given to the whole department. Some departments hold a yearly retreat, and some time is reserved for discussion of assessment results.

However the discussion is structured, it is best practice to have as much discussion involving as many people as possible. In a way, discussion is the point of assessment. If you have learned something new about your students’ learning, you are going to want to review your curriculum and your courses to see if there are ways to take advantage of this new knowledge. It is ideal if everyone in the department is involved in thinking this through. It’s fine for one person or a group of people to take the lead on an assessment project; it is a missed opportunity, however, if only that person or group of people ever discuss the results and decide how to use them.

Consider curricular changes

Up until this point, we have been talking about assessment as a process and a concern unto itself. But assessment is worth doing only in service to student learning. If your assessment efforts have been successful, you will find yourself with new knowledge about student learning in hand. This is the whole point of doing assessment in the first place.

It is likely that this new knowledge will suggest that you make changes in your program’s curriculum or in specific courses. So put into practice what you have learned. Decisions about such changes, of course, are under the control of your departmental or program faculty. Faculty may feel uncomfortable with assessment, but when it comes to course or curricular design, faculty are uniquely capable and experienced. Many faculty find themselves feeling more friendly towards assessment when they see its usefulness in discussions about the educational effectiveness of their program.

Of course, it is completely possible that your assessment data could suggest that nothing needs changing. If so, your data stand as direct evidence of your program’s effectiveness regarding the student learning issue you have investigated. In that case, you can proceed directly to your next assessment project.