Results from a National Needs Assessment Survey: A View of Assessment Efforts within Chemistry Departments

Abstract

As is true for virtually all of higher education, chemistry departments are often required to provide evidence of student learning at both course and curricular levels through evaluation and assessment. The ACS Exams Institute conducted a needs assessment survey of 1500 chemistry faculty members from across the country to investigate motivation, role, instrument use, and challenges associated with assessment efforts. For the more than 70% of participants who reported departmental efforts related to assessment, these findings emerged: motivations were primarily external factors related to accreditation and certification, ACS Exams and in-house exams were the most common instruments used, and time management associated with grading and reporting assessment results was the most frequently cited challenge. Summary results for each survey question related to these aspects of departmental assessment efforts are provided, along with logistic regression analyses of responses based on institution type. Logistic regression analyses were also used to identify differences among sex, years teaching, and chemistry subdiscipline for responses to departmental assessment efforts and instrument use. ABSTRACT: As is true for virtually all of higher education, chemistry departments are often required to provide evidence of student learning at both course and curricular levels through evaluation and assessment. The ACS Exams Institute conducted a needs assessment survey of 1500 chemistry faculty members from across the country to investigate motivation, role, instrument use, and challenges associated with assessment efforts. For the more than 70% of participants who reported departmental efforts related to assessment, these findings emerged: motivations were primarily external factors related to accreditation and certification, ACS Exams and in-house exams were the most common instruments used, and time management associated with grading and reporting assessment results was the most frequently cited challenge. Summary results for each survey question related to these aspects of departmental assessment efforts are provided, along with logistic regression analyses of responses based on institution type. Logistic regression analyses were also used to identify differences among sex, years teaching, and chemistry subdiscipline for responses to departmental assessment efforts and instrument use.

Investigating Faculty Familiarity with Assessment Terminology by Applying Cluster Analysis To Interpret Survey Data

“…As previously reported, this group of faculty not only is exclusive to chemistry education research faculty but also includes faculty who identify education as their primary focus, for example, many two-year institution faculty. 9,10 Second, higher proportions of analytical and physical chemistry faculty are found in cluster groupings distinguished by familiarity with statistics terms, which is consistent with the expectation that these fields often utilize statistics in their science research. 10,11 Finally, a comparison of the percentage of faculty in each cluster by years teaching (in five-year increments) in each respective cluster is reported in Table 8.…”

Defining Conceptual Understanding in General Chemistry

“…29,30 The database consisted of a comprehensive list of colleges and universities from all 50 states that was sorted based on whether the university was a doctoral, four-year college, or community college. Every school's Web site was searched to update the existing list of faculty members and their contact information.…”

Validating Chemistry Faculty Members’ Self-Reported Familiarity with Assessment Terminology

“…Detailed demographic information and statistical analyses of the sample of participants based on institution type, sex, number of years teaching, area of specialization, and use of ACS Exams have been reported elsewhere. 7 To validate the self-reported familiarity data reported herein, the entire database of participants was combined. Statistical analysis of the analogy question responses by demographic information are provided in the Supporting Information.…”