The commonality among student development theorists is that they all place an importance on evaluating the students' cognitive and academic growth. The final sources that helped sculpt this project were surveys regarding student learning and development previously conducted at the University of Washington by the Office of Educational Assessment and by organizations with a national scope. Within those questions, five common areas of focus emerged from all these sources. Prior to December 1997, many intense conversations occurred regarding the intersection between assessment and the new state accountability mandate. However, because of the thorough examination of the aforementioned sources, these conversations became more systematically directed towards shaping a plan that continues the institution s evaluation of students for improvement as well as creating a response for external needs based on the tradition of assessment on campus.
Methods draw upon both quantitative and qualitative practices, direct and indirect approaches.
The multi-tasking is a conscious choice in order to control for some limitations in the overall design and time constraints imposed by the external pressures of the accountability mandate. Limitations of the overall design are specifically addressed below. The first, indirect approach utilized is surveys collecting student self-reported data. At a future time point, in order to validate students' self-evaluation of their skills, the UW may survey employers of the alumni regarding the caliber of UW graduates in terms of skills and preparedness. Development of surveys for five discrete cohorts of students past or present occurred from December 1997 through April 1998.