Today, American higher education is paying additional attention to student learning outcomes and graduation rates as measures of student success. This paper discusses the two cases of the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMA) and California State University Long Beach (CSULB), focusing on their evidence-based educational improvement objectives to be achieved by means of strategic-planning-based reviews of degree granting programs and/or academic support programs.
Initially, this study explores the procedures of the Academic Quality Assessment and Development (AQAD) program review at UMA. The Office of Institutional Research (IR) contributes to the AQAD review process by providing agreed information to departments. Focusing on the AQAD review process as an example of inquiry-led practice, this study analyzes how effectively each department prepares a self-study report based on topics and questions aimed at guiding faculty members to an understanding of what self-study could ideally achieve.
As a diverse, large public university, CSULB is also committed to supporting the success of their students all the way to timely graduation. Advising is one of its essential support services. Thus, CSULB needs to carry out both a degree-granting program review and an academic support program review, both conducted by the Program Assessment and Review Council.
Based on the experiences of UMA and CSULB, the author discusses three implications for constructing a framework to support program review and IR functions at universities in Japan. Firstly, a comprehensive approach in terms of introducing “program review” including a degree-granting program and academic support program is needed at any university with a diverse student body as a mechanism supporting educational reform efforts aimed at the realization of student success. Secondly, placing a priority on program review in a manner consistent with the university’s mission or its strategic plan and conducting inquiry-led self-study in line with those prioritized topics are effective measures. Finally, the IR makes an active contribution by providing data or information and developing in-house student surveys for a department or program in the context of responding to those inquiries of their self-study.
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