Goals, objectives, and performance criteria: a useful assessment tool for students and teachers

In this paper, the authors discuss how they have applied the Assessment Plan Development Guide developed by Gloria M. Rogers and Jean K. Sando at Rose Hulman for the Foundation Coalition to the English Freshman Composition course in the first-year integrated program in engineering at Arizona State University, USA. Assessment in composition courses is especially difficult, and experts in composition disagree on the nature and validity of assessment. However, to examine student learning and course effectiveness, instructors need assessment tools. Their goals/objectives/performance matrix has enabled them to begin this assessment. Although originally developed for freshman composition, they have found that this matrix which defines goals, objectives and performance criteria can easily be employed by instructors in other disciplines. Developing such a matrix not only provides instructors with a useful assessment tool, it also provides them with a powerful tool for reevaluating course content and course development. It also provides students with a way to reflect on and evaluate their own learning, and when students are self-reflective about their own learning, they believe that they tend to do better.