Using Deductions from Assessment Studies towards Furtherance of the Academic Program: An Empirical Appraisal of Institutional Student Course Evaluation

Abstract

The regular evaluation of ongoing activities under academic programs is required evidence towards academic development. Indeed, such evaluations generally involve data collection on a Likert type item as one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). While using arithmetic mean in item by item analysis to derive inferences, as adopted by the National Commission for Assessment and Academic Accreditation (NCAAA), two issues occurred to us, its accuracy as well as usefulness. We took initiatives to also use more appropriate and useful measures to deal with the ordinal scale involved in such data. Surprisingly, a review showed a mixed practice. This article aims to describe and advocate the need of focusing more on such appropriate practices. Such practice extends many-fold benefits: (i) theoretical appropriateness, (ii) accuracy in results and related inferences, (iii) ease of understanding, (iv) useful clues regarding academic improvements, and (v) optimum use of allocated resources.