Assessment, Evaluation
& Research
This competency area focuses on the ability to design, conduct, critique, and use various AER methodologies and the results obtained from them, to utilize AER processes and their results to inform practice, and to shape the political and ethical climate surrounding AER processes and uses in higher education.
A Qualitative Study of the Working College Student Experience
The final project in our Qualitative Research with Today's Diverse College Students course consisted of a culmination of group qualitative research on a specific student population within the institution of our choice. My group chose to conduct a qualitative study on the working college student experience comparative to private and public four-year institutions. Much research has placed working students at-risk for many negative factors, such as failing academic performance (Logan et al., 2016), fleeting sense of belonging (Strayhorn, 2019), and experiencing harmful levels of attrition and stress (Mukherjee et at., 2018). The results of our findings show that working students are willingly putting themselves at risk of dropping out of college and undergoing unhealthy amounts of stress out of necessity. Through this research, my competency in conducting, understanding, and using qualitative research to gain insight into specific student population experiences has developed immensely. Qualitative research provides student affairs professionals incredible insight into the unique and vital narratives of the students in which they serve.
Program Evaluation of Azusa Pacific University's Student Center for Reconciliation & Diversity
By using both quantitative and qualitative research methods and skills, the culmination final project for our Program Evaluation in College Studnet Affairs course consisted of working in groups to evaluate a specific functional area at an institution of our choice. My group chose to evaluate Azusa Pacific University’s Student Center for Reconciliation & Diversity (SCRD), which plays a crucial role in educating and advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion on APU’s campuses and surrounding communities. This project challenged us in both familiarizing ourselves with and referring to the Council of Advancement for Standards in Higher Education (CAS) to accurately and professionally evaluate the success and areas of improvement for this program.
We chose to evaluate SCRD in regards to four specific CAS standards. The first was Programs and Services, the second was Student Learning Development and Success, the third was Access Equity Diversity and Inclusion, and lastly Collaboration and Communication (CAS, 2019). This assignment provided an outlet for applying the skills and knowledge learned in our previous qualitative and quantitative research courses while gaining vital hands-on experience in using CAS standards to develop program evaluation reports. As a result, our study identified key areas of success and of improvement within this vital student serving center.
Post-Career Development Workshop Student Survey
As a way of incorporating assessment and evaluation into key Career Center services, I created and published various surveys designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Career Center’s classroom workshops. By designing post-workshop surveys that take into account Student Learning Outcomes, I am better able to gather useful data on the success of our center’s workshops. Creating these surveys allowed me to highlight the importance of formative assessment within our center, in which feedback provides information about existing gaps between the actual and desired success of our services (Seo, McGrane, Taherbhai, 2015). This experience has not only allowed me to gain hands-on experience in implementing service assessment strategies, but also analyzing and using the data collected from such assessments to improve services.