What Does the Site Team Say? A Qualitative Analysis of ACEJMC Site Visit Reports of U.S. Undergraduate Programs Found in Assessment Noncompliance, 2013 to 2022

The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC) requires accredited programs to regularly assess student learning outcomes. Assessment has the highest noncompliance, typically accounting for half of annual totals, and no research has examined what site teams wrote to support such conclusions. Using constructivist learning theory, this study applies grounded theory methods to qualitatively analyze visit reports for ACEJMC-accredited programs found in assessment noncompliance from 2013 to 2022. Issues related to artifacts, people, decision support, missed opportunities, and misunderstandings emerged. The author suggests how to reconsider and support assessment efforts to resemble those of mass communication scholarship.