Degree Program Expectations
How-to Guide

The resources provided on this website will assist you in completing the Degree Program Expectations, including the six steps of the assessment process. The ideas and suggestions for completing the steps are intended to provide useful information for faculty and department chairs.  Meaningful assessment practices are anything but a one-size-fits-all approach. For assessment to be useful, it needs to be tailored to fit each academic unit and program. Since each academic department or school and its degree programs differ in terms of size, approach, and outlook, it is important to ensure that the assessment approach matches the needs of the program, the faculty, and students. Staff from the Office of Curriculum & Assessment are available to discuss any thoughts or ideas to help programs build a learning outcomes assessment approach that fulfills NAU’s assessment requirements and meets the needs of your faculty and students.

The Cyclical Nature of Learning Outcomes Assessment and NAU’s Six Step Assessment Cycle

The primary goal of program learning outcomes assessment at NAU is to assess how well the program’s students have achieved the program’s learning outcomes. Obtaining this information leads to identifying student learning strengths and areas for continued improvement. Due to this approach, the process of “curriculum and assessment” is cyclical in nature. It is an ongoing process that should evolve and change to inform directions for a program’s curriculum as programs and students evolve and change. Our goal is to ensure our programs maintain student learning strengths, and that actions taken result in the improvements sought by the program’s faculty.

There are six steps to NAU’s learning outcomes assessment cycle:

Purpose Statement

Learning Outcomes

Systematic Assessment

Use of Findings