Academic PIEs – Detailed Description
William & Mary’s Process of Institutional Effectiveness (PIE) emphasizes curricular experiences and measures the extent to which learning expectations are met through a defined curriculum. PIEs also refer to profiles used to document the process and demonstrate how assessment results guide curricular and pedagogical changes to enhance student learning. We embrace the varied approaches of faculties as they engage in institutional effectiveness, even as we strive to build a consistent reporting format. Key to each approach is a reflective, collaborative, and deliberate review of student learning expectations and the use of assessment results to inform decisions about the curriculum and pedagogy. The goal is a manageable and meaningful process that avoids reductionism and a database that provides a means for documenting and reviewing the varied approaches.
Academic program PIEs include the following components:
- Purpose: Links each department to the institutional mission;
- Expectations: What faculty expect students to learn in the major program. The profile is organized by expectation. Each expectation includes the following, some of which may be consistent across expectations:
- Curricular Experiences: Describes how and where learning expectations are addressed in the curriculum (and co-curriculum, if applicable); how students will learn what faculty expect them to learn.
- Student Work: Describes specific types of assignments, methods, tests, etc. that individual faculty members use to evaluate student learning and is a reference for the program about data sources for assessment at the program level;
- Student Work Sampling Strategy: Illustrates representativeness of student work relative to learning experiences and range of performance (e.g., low level and high-level samples, a percentage of all collected student work, etc.);
- Process Used to Evaluate Student Work/Experiences: Describes who conducts evaluations (e.g., department curriculum committee) and the process used to evaluate student work/experiences (i.e., description of how the program reviews curricular and co-curricular experiences);
- Other Data/Evidence Collected and Reviewed – Optional: Describes other materials reviewed, if relevant (e.g., syllabi).
- Assessment Results and Analysis: Describes the department/program findings of the expectation’s assessment and recommendations to address strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum (i.e., the process whereby the department or program makes decisions to improve and enhance learning experiences.) Use of Assessment Results to Enhance Student Learning: Describes what changes are planned/implemented to enhance student learning based on the analysis of assessment results. Departments/Programs list and discuss changes at the course and department/program levels and the criteria/evidence used to reach conclusions.
- Use of Assessment Results to Enhance the Assessment Process: Describes enhancements to the department/program assessment process, if any, based on assessment results.
- Additional Department/Program Comments and Support Files – Optional: Allows for additional comments and materials about the assessment that might be helpful to reviewers.
