Presenter:
Susan K. Wolcott, WolcottLynch Associates
Description:
Virtually all accounting programs state that critical thinking and other professional competencies are desired learning outcomes. Yet, individual professors and programs often struggle to identify ways to reliably assess these outcomes and to "close the assessment loop"—i.e., use assessment results to improve learning outcomes.
This poster session will demonstrate a practical rubric for assessing critical thinking and other professional competencies using classroom essay assignments. The assessment rubric is a developmental form of Primary Trait Analysis (Walvoord and Anderson 1998), and the levels of performance in the rubric are grounded in the reflective judgment model of cognitive development (King and Kitchener). Assessments automatically identify both strengths and weaknesses in student skills, enabling educators to readily use assessment results to help students develop desired skills.
The poster session will also provide guidance for designing appropriate essay assignments for assessment and for using the results to improve student competencies. It will be of interest to individual professors as well as to those responsible for program assessment.
