West Virginia University

Student Affairs Evaluation, Assessment & Training

Good Assessment Practices for Student Affairs

As educators, WVU student affairs professionals strive to create active student learning environments with student learning and development at the core of programming efforts. Based on WVU?s Mission, the Student Affairs Mission, and Mountaineer Creed, the division has outlined the following five student learning goals (The Five Cs), which support our student-centeredness focus:

The Five Cs

  1. Commitment to Excellence – Students will exercise academic and personal integrity. Students will demonstrate intellectual curiosity, a commitment to wellness, and a commitment to emotional and spiritual growth.
  2. Competence – Students will analyze, synthesize, apply, and evaluate information and ideas from multiple perspectives and draw meaningful connections between the curricular and co-curricular.
  3. Compassion – Students will demonstrate an understanding of how the values of personal integrity, cooperative action, and respect for diversity influence behavior.
  4. Citizenship – Students will demonstrate ability to interact effectively in a variety of social and political contexts. They will develop a sense of value, purpose, and self-worth.
  5. Communication – Students will demonstrate their ability to effectively read, write, listen, and speak. They will make use of appropriate information sources, presentation formats, and technologies.

The creation of broad learning goals is consistent with reforms called for by our professional organizations. For instance, in 1996 the American College Personnel Association issued a document, The Student Learning Imperative: Implications for Student Affairs, to assist student affairs professionals in their efforts to assess student learning and personal development. The document?s intent was to create dialogues on how to improve the overall student experience ?by affirming student learning and personal development as the primary goals of undergraduate education? (p. 8), thus requiring student affairs to redefine its role as a not only a service-provider, but also as an educator.

More recently, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (2003), which includes our accrediting body, stated that its assessment expectations of an institution include:
  • Having student learning at the center of its mission
  • Documenting of student learning, which requires:
    • Setting clear goals
    • Collecting evidence from multiple sources, including the co-curricular
    • Providing judgments based upon evidence
    • Using evidence to make changes and improve student learning
  • Involving stakeholders
  • Exhibiting commitment to educational improvement (pp. 3-4).
    WVU Student Affairs recognizes that its units within the division are unique. Therefore, each must decide which goals are appropriate to measure in relation to its programming efforts. Units will also need to clearly define their own student learning objectives and outcomes within their assessment plans.

Please note, that when units are assessing student learning and development, we ask that each not only consider the Five Cs, but also consider the WVU Undergraduate Mission Statement, Student Affairs Mission, and the Mountaineer Creed.