Loyola University Chicago’s, Office of the Provost, requires, in alignment with our Strategic Plan Enduring Value Extraordinary Academics and Research,  that each academic unit and each distinct curricular program: 

• develops measurable program learning outcomes for students 
• implements plans to support students in meeting these outcomes 
• assesses what students have learned, the means by which they learned, and the effectiveness of the learning process.   

Assessment and program review are required elements of the Higher Learning Commission regional accreditation process. These practices help satisfy elements of the HLC's required institutional accreditation process for Loyola. The purpose driving the requirements, however, is that faculty and staff should use assessment to continuously reflect on and refine their courses, programs, and supports for student learning. Assessment is an important aspect of evidence-based student learning for continuous improvement, grounded in our mission to expand knowledge – both for our students and for us as instructional leaders. We want to know that our programs are effective and that students are learning, and what we can do to improve our programs and provide better learning experiences. Assessment is a way for academic units to ask themselves “What is it that we want students to learn in our programs?” and “How and when do we know that they learn these things?”  This reflection is a natural extension of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm used to guide our instruction.

Program Learning Outcomes

Program learning outcomes (PLOs) are the target of annual academic assessment. Academic units are required to make the PLOs that describe their academic programs public; usually 4-7 PLOs are sufficient. PLOs are written to clearly answer the questions above. A PLO at Loyola is defined as a statement describing the knowledge, skills, values, dispositions, attitudes, and/or experiences that students should acquire through completion of a course or program of study. Intended learning outcomes should be stated in measurable terms. Guidance for writing measurable program learning outcomes can be found in this document, and other resources on the CLAS website.

Collaboration and Planning

Faculty within academic units will work collaboratively and continuously to assess their programs. Each academic unit should develop an assessment plan that lists each program and PLO and documents when each PLO will be assessed over time. The assessment plan will specify which programs within the academic unit will be assessed annually, and which program learning outcomes for the program will be the objects for a given year’s assessment. The academic units will share this plan with the Office of the Provost and send updates as needed. 

Guided by their overall assessment plan, each year faculty will determine which programs and PLOs will be the targets of their annual academic assessment report they will submit to the Office of the Provost. The report should focus on 1-2 PLOs from 1-2 programs. 

A review team, consisting of faculty from academic units and Provost’s Office leadership and staff will provide actionable feedback on the annual assessment reports. For academic units that have many programs, it may not be possible to report on assessment of every PLO in every program. In these cases, the academic unit will decide which PLOs/programs they think will most benefit from feedback. The review team will provide feedback that is both specific and generalizable and is applicable to other programs besides the one that is reported on.

• Units are encouraged to be strategic in their selection of which program learning outcomes to assess each year and apply the feedback they receive to outcomes that may not have been the focus of an annual report. 

• We encourage units to think about the logical development of learning over time in their programs and identify places in the curriculum to systematically assess that learning. We encourage units to utilize direct and embedded forms of assessment. 

Assessment is iterative

Reporting of annual program learning assessments is part of the university’s continuous improvement efforts and should be seen as an ongoing, iterative process. The findings should be used to make improvements to teaching and learning within academic programs. Additionally, annual assessment reports and feedback should be used as part of your unit’s Academic Program Review self-study and inform your action plan.  

Expectations of academic units

Each academic unit is responsible for:

• Developing meaningful and measurable program learning outcomes for students in their academic programs
• Implementing processes that systematically collect, analyze, and make meaning of data related to program learning outcomes assessment
• Ensuring that assessment findings are communicated and utilized for continuous improvement of student learning

Important Terms

• Academic Unit: entities that offer academic programs at Loyola University Chicago, including colleges/schools/institutes and department/interdisciplinary programs within the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Academic Program: a program of study and experience that leads to an undergraduate or graduate degree or certificate.  
• Program Learning Outcome (PLO): a statement of what students should know and be able to do as a result of their participation in the academic program. Well-written PLOs include four components: condition (degree), audience, behavior, and achievement. Bloom’s taxonomy can be used to describe the behavior aspect of PLOs. Functional PLOs are also specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. 
• Indirect assessment: a proxy for student learning in that the student describes their own learning, e.g., through surveys and interviews. 
• Assessment plan: for each academic program, a multi-year plan that indicates when and how each PLO in that program will be assessed. 
• Direct assessment: tangible evidence of what students have learned. Students can show what they know, and the evidence can be evaluated by a professional (faculty or staff member), often using a rubric or other benchmarking tool that describes levels of assessment achievement.
• Embedded assessment: the assessment takes place during the regular activities of the program, usually within courses. The same student artifacts used for course assessment may be used for program assessments. When used as program assessments, the data will be analyzed through a lens of understanding how well the students have met a given PLO, rather than understanding what an individual student has achieved on a specific assignment. Analysis of a population of students’ performance on program outcomes considering benchmarked levels of achievement can inform the unit as to the success of students meeting intended program goals.