To provide effective leadership for educational change in an academic department, a chair needs to understand clearly the department's purpose or mission, the specific results or student learning outcomes the department intends to produce, and the extent to which and specifically how the department produces its results. Without the essential guidance provided by a well-crafted mission statement, clearly defined outcome goals and objectives, and credible evidence of the department's performance, a chair will have difficulty leading toward specific changes in student learning.
Well used, the mission statement, intended outcomes, and information on performance permit clear thinking about the quality of a department's performance on the part of everyone concerned: chair, faculty, staff, and students. Without these elements, confusion may reign about purpose, desired and actual results, and the need for change. Evidence of student learning produced by assessment research can be thought of as the department's academic bottom line. Without such evidence, the chair cannot lead others to change the quality of student learning.
This chapter is designed to help chairs develop a clear view of assessment research in the academic department and a vision of how they can use assessment to help lead change. It shows how a department can define the student learning outcomes it desires to produce, and use assessment to monitor and improve the quality of students' learning. It introduces basic concepts and principles and it identifies pitfalls and suggests ways of avoiding them. A concluding section suggests specialized resources that can assist chairs
in understanding student learning and in carrying out the crucial tasks of defining and monitoring this learning.