NCATE Website Navigation Standard 2.1 Assessment System
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Standard 2.0: Overview
Standard 2.1 Assessment System
Standard 2.2 Data Collection, Analysis, and Evaluation
Standard 2.3 Use of Data for Program Improvement
Standard 2: Recommendations/Summary
Exhibits and Displays for Standard 2

Development of the Assessment System

Beginning in 2001, the unit developed a common candidate data base to track demographics, program eligibility, admissions, placements, and completion. In 2002, those efforts expanded to developing a system that would also track performance. The performance system drew on contributions from the professional community, beginning with NCATE assessment literature. Over the next three years, we developed and reviewed the assessment system during the course of seven three-hour Work Sessions. Each session was attended by approximately 35 faculty and staff. The unit funded eight faculty and staff to attend NCATE Workshops for Continuing Accreditation near Washington, DC, and faculty attended workshops at AACTE, AERA, and at their professional conferences. During the design stage, we also referred back to earlier formal and informal surveys of candidates, alumni, school faculty, and employers. We identified these as our unit-wide standards and common transition points:

Common Standards

Standards Linked to Programs
Unit Standards:

CLSE: Council of Learned Societies in Education, Standards for Foundations of Education
NBPTS: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards
MDE: Michigan Department of Education
Danielson Domains: Danielson, C. (1996). Enhancing professional practice: A framework for teaching.
Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Common Transition Points

Transition Points Linked to Programs and Standards

Comprehensive and Integrated Measures

The third stage of designing the assessment system was by far the most intensive and resulted in features that will perhaps yield the most valuable results. The goal was to design a system that would not only provide final outcome data but would also point back to program areas that needed improvement. Specifically, the assessment design included the following:

  • Common Standards for Each Program
  • Common Courses Linked to Common Standards
  • Common Assessments Linked to Common Courses
  • Common Rubrics for Each Common Assessment
  • Common Evaluation Forms for All Evaluators
Each specialty program aligned each common standard with at least one course most relevant to that standard. This course would take primary responsibility for considering the outcomes of that standard. Faculty designed common syllabi, assessments, and rubrics for each course and for all who taught it. These materials "of record" served to anchor each course and link it to the common standard although individual instructors could and did go beyond the common points. At the end of each semester, instructors gathered data on the assessments to analyze in the light of final outcomes.

In Initial programs, each standard has between one and four assessments associated with it. In Advanced programs preparing teachers, most of the ten emphasis areas use one or two common assessments for each standard. In Advanced programs preparing other school personnel, two or three common assessments exist for most standards. (For a separate matrix on each of the three programs, see Assessment System--Initial, Advanced-Teachers, Advanced-Other School Personnel.

(Note: the unit-wide system includes only courses that are common or equivalent for all candidates. For example, a course in elementary math instruction would not be included in the unit-wide system because there is no secondary equivalent. Two separate elementary and secondary courses in reading instruction would be included, however, because they have equivalent outcomes. For special education candidates, the system includes common elementary courses but not additional special education courses.)

Validity and Reliability

To strengthen predictive validity, we looked to the judgments of alumni and employers rather than to other possible indicators of candidate "success" such as grades, number of completers, or candidate satisfaction. Assessments used the same performance standards for each phase: pre and post-completion. Identical questions were posed to evaluators: faculty, candidates, graduates, employers. Using the full two years of data now collected, the unit will begin to examine predictive validity.

Within courses, common assessments and rubrics were developed to enhance inter-rater reliability and to improve consistency of data for evaluation and improvement. Every instructor and every section used the same assessments and rubrics, all of which were designed by regular program faculty and discussed with adjunct faculty in break-out groups at Adjunct Faculty Orientations.

For its first large-scale venture into program assessment, the unit decided early in the process on two principles: 1) to assess the entire population of candidates rather than trying to determine representative samples, and 2) to gather the judgments of all relevant evaluators, not just university instructors. The results are Initial assessments from seven different evaluators, Advanced assessments from four different evaluators, and candidate self-assessments at each of the major transition points. This chart identifies the respondents for each common assessment:

Initial and Advanced: Assessments Linked to Evaluators


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