Office of Assessment
Learn More About GCU’s Office of Assessment
Grand Canyon University fosters a culture of student assessment and improvement by establishing a strong foundation for assessment of student learning and implementing institutional goals and benchmarks. The Office of Assessment functions to facilitate continuous improvement of student learning and is responsible for management, analysis and informational reporting of assessment data collected by GCU.
Yet, “assessment” is greater than a single office or operational area. All stakeholders are involved in student learning and institutional experience and, therefore, are part of the ongoing collaboration and effort to promote a culture of assessment among faculty, staff and students.
GCU is committed to student learning and continuous improvement:
Learn More About Our Mission
Our mission is to facilitate continuous improvement of student learning and to remove obstacles to learning by affecting change at operational, tactical and strategic levels. In addition, we manage, store and report assessment data collected by GCU. Our office is a central institutional resource for ensuring that GCU is producing high-quality graduates and fulfilling its goals as set forth in the university’s declared mission and vision, pillars and guiding principles.
Resources
If you would like to learn more about student assessment methodologies, the importance of assessment and the significant role assessment plays in higher education, please visit the sites below. These resources include information from accrediting bodies, education associations and articles for best practices for assessment.
Student Assessment at Grand Canyon University
At GCU, student assessment is defined as the process of gathering and discussing information from multiple and diverse sources in order to develop a deep understanding of what students know, understand and can do with their knowledge as a result of their educational experiences. This process culminates when assessment results are used to improve subsequent learning (Huba and Freed, 2000).
GCU's faculty-driven, course-embedded and performance-based approach to assessment is ongoing, intentional, thorough and applicable so that it will have the most significant possible impact on improvement of student learning and university functions and processes. Our ultimate goal is to improve student learning and the total university experience by enhancing instructional effectiveness, removing obstacles to learning, facilitating student persistence toward completion of an academic program and demonstrating purposeful effort toward institutional effectiveness.
Essential to the institutionalization of assessment and our commitment to continuous improvement is the development of a culture of assessment among faculty, staff and students. The resulting establishment of widespread reflective practice and acquired evaluative expertise characterizes our community and commitment to a culture of student assessment.
Assessment of Student Learning
GCU employs multiple methods to ensure the assessment of student learning. At the university-level, GCU practices a blind review process of student artifacts collected through the university’s curriculum-embedded, direct assessment approach for both undergraduate and graduate mission-critical competencies. The blind review process is designed to ensure that the student learning evidence compiled through these campus-wide efforts is authentic, valid and reliable.
Additionally, GCU participates in a wide variety of national assessment initiatives which provide outcome assessment and comparative benchmarking opportunities, as well as informative data for assessing instructional and curricular effectiveness and for informing improvement actions. These include, but are not limited to, NSSE, CLA, ETS PP, NCLEX, AEPA, NES, Praxis, Peregrine and MCAT.
Programmatic Assessment
Program Efficacy and Performance
University Assessment Committee
The University Assessment Committee (UAC) identifies assessment goals for GCU, provides discussion and assistance in the development of assessment tools and assists with creating a culture of assessment at GCU. The individual committee members work collaboratively to identify and develop assessment tools and serve as liaisons in communicating assessment strategies and building a culture of student assessment in their respective colleges or departments.
Purpose and Scope
Membership
Student and Faculty Surveys
GCU also develops, deploys and continually improves a wide range of surveys to obtain input from constituencies. This systematic and robust approach includes recurring faculty and student end of course surveys, end of program surveys, initial course surveys, alumni surveys, student services surveys and a wide variety of other discipline- and area-specific surveys.
Receiving feedback from our students is imperative in pursuing our mission of measuring and delivering quality education to all.
Feedback collected from student surveys from April to June 2023 found that:
89.32%
Online students surveyed felt their instructor facilitated engagement in classroom discussion in a helpful and meaningful way.(See disclaimer 1) 88.88% of these students agreed that their instructor demonstrated expertise in the subject matter area.(See disclaimer 1)
84.84%
Traditional students felt their instructor facilitated engagement in classroom discussion in a helpful and meaningful way.(See disclaimer 1) 88.22% of these students agreed that their instructor demonstrated expertise in the subject matter area.(See disclaimer 1)
Percentage of online students who felt their instructor effectively facilitated meaningful classroom discussion(See disclaimer 1)
Percentage of traditional students who felt their instructor effectively facilitated meaningful classroom discussion(See disclaimer 1)
Learn more about assessment at GCU and our commitment to the highest standards of academic excellence.
- Responses (excluding blank responses) collected from courses that were completed between April 2023 and June 2023. Students who completed more than one course during this timeframe were counted for each response submitted.