|
PBA Home >
Institutional Research & Analysis >
Outcomes Assessment >
Unit Summaries >
College of Business and Administration
College of Business and Administration
Last updated prior to August 1998
Knowledge and skill goals for this undergraduate degree program are recorded in the most
recent CU-Boulder catalog. In some summaries of assessment activity, goals are referred to by number
(e.g., K-2 is knowledge goal 2).
From the start of the CU-Boulder undergraduate outcomes assessment process,
the college planned to participate in a project of the AACSB (American
Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business) which was developing a national
outcomes assessment test. The AACSB is the college's accrediting agency.
The exam was developed for its member schools and affiliates, and was nationally
scored by an independent agency, Assessment Systems, Inc. It was first
approved by the AACSB for pilot use in 1991-92. That year, a random sample
of 90 CU-Boulder graduating seniors took the exam which consisted of 10
questions in each of 7 content areas. AACSB did not provide national norms
at that point, and intended schools to track their own performance on a
year-to-year basis. The 1991-92 results were to serve as a baseline for
future comparisons.
The AACSB withdrew the exam in 1992-93 for expansion and revision. In
addition, the college underwent extensive administrative and curricular
restructuring that year. For both these reasons, outcomes assessment was
postponed for the year.
In 1993-94, a random sample of 54 graduating seniors enrolled in the
capstone business policy course took a subset of the new AACSB exam, with
questions selected by the college's division chairs and their respective
faculty. The test is intended to measure competence in the basic core business
curriculum. The full exam has 420 questions sub-divided into seven areas,
with 70 items in each. The faculty had originally selected 150 questions
to be included in the exam. However, the exam was administered during the
summer session and time limitations only allowed 60 of the questions to
be used.
As with the earlier version, the AACSB did not provide national or comparative
norms, and the chairs were still considering the particular questions to
be used. They felt that some of the AACSB questions are more traditional
and do not represent some of the more recent theories and techniques taught
to CU-Boulder students.
In 1994-95 the college, in consultation with colleagues at other AAU
and AACSB schools, designed a new assessment instrument for graduating
seniors; CU-Boulder and a select number of other schools planned to develop
national norms that would enable comparisons more effectively and efficiently
than was possible with the AACSB model. However, the project has not yet
yielded a useable instrument.
As part of the College's new strategic plan and new undergraduate curriculum
adopted in 1995/96, the COllege committed itself to using outcomes assessment
in reviewing, on an annual basis, stakeholder judgments about the new undergraduate
program and College services. The College also put in place an organizational
structure whereby the results of these outcomes assessment surveys would
be channeled to appropriate committees and individuals in the College for
their review and recommendations.
The stakeholders the College has elected to survey at the undergraduate
level are as follows: (1) recruiters of our students, (2) alumni, 3 to
5 years after graduate, and (3) graduating seniors. In the spring
of 1997 and the spring of 1998, the College surveyed recruiters and graduating
seniors. In the spring of 1999, we expect to add our alumni to our
annual stakeholders survey list.
In surveying recruiters of our students, we are initially asking this
group to judge the importance of various competencies and skills in our
undergraduate curriculum. In this way we are attempting to validate,
on a regular basis, the elements in our undergraduate curriculum and to
make appropriate adjustments to our curriculum as needed. The second
area that we ask recruiters to judge is how well our students, as employees,
are performing in these competencies and skills. With this part of
the survey, we are attempting to measure how well we are doing as educators
in providing our students with the competencies and skills that recruiters
have identified as important.
In surveying our graduating seniors, we are asking this group to judge
the importance of and the College's performance in providing selected services
to our undergraduates. These services include computer labs, technical
support, placement and career advising, meeting rooms, library facilities,
etc.
Over the last two years, recruiters have validated the individual components
in our new undergraduate curriculum. These components include oral
and written communications, computer proficiency, teamwork skills, and
ethical awareness. As we have yet to graduate new curriculum students
(the first class will be graduating in 1999), we are as of yet unable to
judge how well our new curriculum students, as employees, are performing
in these areas.
Over the last two years, the College has used the graduate senior surveys
to monitor and improve student services. Specifically, we have expanded
career services in the College and are reviewing recommendations to expand
computer support. While our students judged both of these areas as
important, the College's performance in providing these services was not
judged as high as we would have liked.
|
