Evidence of Competency: Evaluation in Higher Education: Throughout my graduate coursework, I feel Evaluation in Higher Education was challenging.

Entering the course, I had limited experience with professional assessment other than the basic assessment that I engage in through my assistantship in Residence Life. I was also intimidated by statistical data and the concept of using that data, mainly because I never had before. In the Evaluation course, my partner and I evaluated the Residence Life Student Staff Selection Process. We chose this topic due to the fact that we both work closing with hiring in our assistantships in Residence Life, and in conversations with the Assistant Director she indicated that a goal of selection when hiring would be to make the selection a representation of the student body. The evaluation and assessment project completed for the Evaluation course illustrated competency in the areas of research and assessment as well as communication skills. The Research and Assessment Competence of the learning outcomes was satisfied through the main goal of assessing and evaluating a realistic program or workshop. The artifact displays the fact that my partner and I had to shift through the little research that existed about RA training and look critically at the questions being asked in previous data to determine if the data would be helpful. Through the artifact we were able to express our understanding of assessment methodologies through the method we outlined in approaching the assessment. Through the assessment we were able to very intricately plan our assessment and use computer tools to extract data and also order the data we received. In terms of Communication Skills, the successful completion of the project depended on our interpersonal skills to work well with each other. The reason being is that in order to complete the assessment plan, we needed to have a clear and cohesive idea of our main goals of the assessment. Furthermore, the artifact is able to express out written communication skills in the areas of clarity, comprehensions, synthesis, and analysis due to the fact that we had to work together to give the artifact

one voice. We each able to influence the work with our own writing styles but took the time to ensure that the writing styles meshed together to give a better description of the project. After gaining a better understanding of the theories and approaches to assessment through the beginning stages of the class, my partner and I were able to design a quantitative approach through pre and post surveys in a quasi-experimental design and a qualitative approach through individual interviews with students who had been through the conduct process. My partner and I were also able to evaluate who the direct and indirect stakeholders in the process were to ensure an accurate measurement of student satisfaction with all stakeholders taken into consideration. Additionally, the class was exposed to SPSS, a technology tool used for statistical data analysis and interpretation. In order to gauge if my partner and I were framing our assessment model in an effective way, we were able to read and critically review various types of research studies that varied in design or purpose. By the end of the course, my partner and I had designed a working assessment tool equipped with a logic model to predict the short and long term outcomes of the assessment, pre and post surveys, consent forms, interview scripts, email drafts to the participants, and codes and categories for the data. When my partner and I were completing our Evaluation project, we were able to clearly articulate the purpose for the topic that we chose the anticipated learning outcomes of the assessment model, and the various components involved in assessing and measuring student satisfaction. My partner and I also exercised oral communication skills by presenting our final Evaluation product to other students in the Evaluation course.