Introduction

Assessment of student learning is critical to New Mexico Tech for a variety of reasons. Fundamentally, the purpose of assessment is to ensure that students gain the knowledge and skills necessary for them to function as professionals and members of the broader society. For background information on the basics of how assessment is conducted, please see our assessment primer. If you have any questions about assessment of student learning, or New Mexico Tech's internal processes for such assessment, please contact Michael Jackson (Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs).

Organization of Campus-Wide Assessment Activities

At New Mexico Tech, we perform a variety of assessment types including: course assessment, program assessment, co-curricular assessment, general education assessment, and Institute-wide assessment. The New Mexico Tech Assessment Task Force is made up of faculty, staff, and administrators (see below) and is responsible for coordinating campus-wide assessment activities, conducting annual assessment reviews, and producing assessment reports. The current workflow for New Mexico Tech's assessment activities, including the central role of the Task Force, is summarized below.

The schedule for assessment reporting and review is as follows:

• October 1st: Assessment reports due to the Office of Academic Affairs
• December 1st: Assessment reports returned to departments with comments. Revisions may be requested.
• March 1st: Final (in some cases, revised) reports included in the Department Activity Reports (DARs)

Membership of New Mexico Tech's Assessment Task Force

The review process is as follows: 

1. Reports are initially reviewed by the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs (AVPAA) and one or more additional reviewers using a Google Forms rubric.  Results are compiled in an associated spreadsheet.
2. The Task Force meets and conducts a “panel discussion” in which reviewers detail the strengths and weaknesses of the reports and appropriate feedback. 
3. The AVPAA drafts summary comments and scores.
4. Summary comments and scores are reviewed by the Task Force.

Classroom Assessment

All courses are required to have course learning outcomes explicitly detailed in the course syllabus, as well as a listing of the learning outcomes of the host department or program. The course learning outcomes are in some cases focused on skills or knowledge specific to the course, though broad outcomes are also often included.  This activity is left up to individual instructors. Some of the data are reported to the department assessment coordinator for use in department/program assessment.

General Education Assessment

Courses required for the general education core curriculum are assessed separately by the departments. This information is formally reported to the Office of Academic Affairs and reviewed by the Assessment Task Force.

A statewide steering committee recently overhauled general education requirements for all public universities in New Mexico. This included developing common learning outcomes for general education courses based on essential skills and draft rubrics for conducting the assessment. New Mexico Tech is currently in the process of adopting the new learning outcomes and revising associated general education assessment practices for our next reporting period.  For more information visit our General Education Assessment page.

Department/Program Assessment 

Assessment at this level is done separately for the undergraduate and graduate programs. This effort is summarized in department assessment reports, which are produced on an annual basis (by academic year). Many have a common format, following a template provided by the Office of Academic Affairs. However, use of this template is not mandatory and the learning outcomes and assessment methods used by departments vary. There are fundamental differences between the assessment of our engineering programs and the arts and sciences programs, because the engineering programs are required to assess performance on learning outcomes prescribed by ABET. The engineering departments are, of course, allowed to assess additional outcomes if they wish, and in some cases do

Co-Curricular Assessment

The principal co-curricular assessment that Tech in performed prior to 2014-2015 focused on assessing student learning associated with the Student Research Symposium (SRS). The NMT Student Research Symposium (SRS) is annual, co-curricular event where NMT students present their research to their peers, professors, the NMT community, and the public. This program began as the university’s accreditation Quality Initiative; assessment is a key component of the program. The SRS continues to assess the student participants’ professional oral and poster presentation skills, and their ability to communicate research to a general, educated, multi-disciplinary audience.

Starting in the 2014-2015 performance period a number of non-academic offices on campus began to assess various aspects of co-curricular student learning. At this point the following offices and programs are conducting co-curricular assessment: (1) Office of Student Learning, including assessments for tutoring, advising coordination, and the Student Research Symposium; (2) Office of Student Affairs; (3) Office of Residential Life; (4) NMT Library.

Institute-Wide Assessment

The principal mechanisms for institutional assessment at Tech is by examination of assessment reports from the various departments, mapping institutional outcomes on to program outcomes, and by student and alumni surveys.