Impact of Student Educational Outcomes Assessment on Virginia Institutions of Higher Education.

For the past 4 years, educational institutions in Virginia have been under state mandate to conduct student educational outcomes assessment (SEOA) and to provide periodic reports to the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia. In an effort to examine how SEOA has developed within Virginia's institutions of higher education, a survey was mailed to the faculty senate chairpersons, curriculum committee chairpersons, and chief assessment officer of 23 community colleges, 15 public senior institutions, and 28 private senior institutions in the state. Response rates were 62%, 26%, and 27% for the three different types of institutions respectively, yielding an overall response rate of 39%. Specifically, the survey sought information on the percent of full-time faculty directly involved in SEOA, the impact of SEOA on the institution's governance structure, and the integration of SEOA into academic practices. Study findings included the following: (1) estimates of faculty involvement were 38% in public senior instituitons, 45% in private senior institutions, and 51% in the community colleges; (2) only 15 of 74 responses indicated that SEOA had led to any type of structural change; (3) 57% of respondents at public senior institutions, 43% at private senior institutions, and 51% at community colleges believed SEOA had been integrated into normal academic processes; (4) faculty senate chairpersons were least likely to respond to the survey; (5) open-ended comments indicated that SEOA had become predominately an administrative process. Study findings suggest that SEOA in Virginia has yet to prove itself as anything other than a reporting process. References are included. (PAA)