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Grants in Higher Education

TEAGLE FOUNDATION GRANTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
November 17, 2006

GRANTS FOR IMPROVED ASSESSMENT METHODS

Click here for other projects in Outcomes and Assessment.

Indiana University
Assessing Deep Approaches to Learning
Project Leader: Thomas Nelson Laird

$97,356 over 12 months. The Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University will test the relationships among the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) deep learning scale and its subscales, and measures of three desired outcomes of liberal arts education: critical thinking dispositions, critical thinking skills, and reflective judgment. Based on a sample of approximately 500 students drawn from three institutions, the results will provide additional insight into the empirical links between student self-reports of experiences with deep approaches to learning and objective measures of learning outcomes considered essential for the 21st century.

Marywood University
Expansion of the Mission Perception Inventory (MPI) / Design of the Institutional Mission Engagement Index (MEI)
Project Leader: Ellen Boylan

$68,138 over 24 months. The Mission Perception Inventory (MPI), developed by Marywood University's Dr. Ellen Boylan and administered to a consortium of institutions as an attachment to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) since 2004, is an assessment tool that enables institutions to examine the relationship between constructs in its mission statements and its students' perception of these mission statements in their college experience. The MPI builds on institutional mission research and its relation to student engagement and learning. Marywood University proposes to expand the use of the MPI to include the development of prediction equations and, subsequently, a better means of assessing student perceptions of liberal arts goals. Data will be gathered and tested from a diverse and expanded number of consortium participants. The larger dataset will ensure the statistical power needed to develop prediction equations. A statistical analysis of the data will produce prediction equations for individual question items and goal constructs in the MPI unique to each consortium member institution. Equations will be run on individual institution data to generate an Institutional Mission Engagement Index (MEI), a custom report for each institution that indicates predicted versus actual scores on MPI goal items. The Index will enable institutions to assess individual areas of strength and weakness-information they can use during strategic planning processes to ensure appropriate asset allocation, as well as to guarantee that institutions' programs and activities address actual needs. This research serves to fill a gap in the field regarding assessment of student perceptions of liberal arts goals.