Minnesota State Moorhead's University Assessment

In order to accomplish Minnesota State Moorhead’s strategic goal of focusing relentlessly on student achievement and students’ return on their investment, the university spends a great deal of time measuring and assessing how well we are doing and whether we are meeting our expectations and goals. Assessment is conducted in the General Education Curriculum (LASC, WI, and FYE), Academic Majors, and Co-curricular (Student Affairs) areas.

Faculty and staff can access all assessment, feedback, forms, and submissions for academic assessment areas via D2L Brightspace and for co-curricular assessment through the Microsoft Team. A summary of the results from the last cycle is available in the 2021-2024 Assessment Summary, and department-level details can be accessed by faculty and staff through D2L Brightspace or by contacting the Co-curricular Assessment Team. If a current faculty or staff member needs access to those locations, please contact the University Assessment Coordinator.

Moorhead Assessment Summary for the Three-Year Cycle 2021-2024

Purpose of Assessment

The primary purpose of assessment is to determine if what we expect students to be learning in our classes and co-curricular activities matches what is actually happening. As a result, our assessment is focused on how we plan to respond to the results of our assessment activities. How will we modify our class the next time we teach it to address the student learning and experience? Is our co-curricular activity no longer matched well to the current student body? Are there areas of student learning, either curricular or co-curricular, that students would like us to focus more on to help them in their professional lives after graduation? It is this kind of reflection and response that the assessment reports submitted at the end of each cycle are focused on.

Summary of the Assessment Cycles

Minnesota State Moorhead conducts assessment of curricular programs on a three-year cycle and assessment of co-curricular programs on an annual basis. In the first year of the three-year academic cycle, General Education course-level assessment is done. These are assessments of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, Writing Intensive, and First Year Experience courses. In the second year of the cycle, programmatic assessment is done. This is assessment of our majors, both undergraduate and graduate programs. Note that assessment of minors, certificates, and pre-professional programs is not conducted separately from the major programs that they are embedded within. In the third year of the cycle the Moorhead Assessment Coordinator and members of the University Assessment Committee’s (UAC) Academic Subcommittee visit with academic departments to remind them of the feedback from their most recent assessment results, talk about the upcoming cycle, and answer any questions and concerns that the department has about assessment.

Co-curricular assessment is done on an annual basis, with activities done during the academic year and reporting and preparation accomplished during the summer. Assessment plans for the upcoming academic year are due in August, the activities are accomplished during the academic year, and reports on the year that just finished are due in June, and then the process repeats. Members of the co-curricular subcommittee of UAC review reports in late June or early July, and provide feedback to the departments prior to their submissions of new plans in August. The co-curricular subcommittee also reviews the plans after they are submitted, and provides feedback to the departments on their plans.