Academic Program Assessment in Higher Education

1. Allen, M. J. (2004). Assessing academic programs in higher education. Bolton, MA:
Anker Publishing Company.
This study attempts to highlight certain key aspects of academic program assessment in higher
education. The paper refers to the correlation between what a student learns and the faculty’s
expectation of what a student should learn, based on which it concludes that resources should be
built systematically aligned with the program objectives. The cohesive curriculum offers students
the opportunity to analyse, practice and build upon complex ideas and skills. The alignment
between the underlying objectives and the curricula as well as the course can be analysed by
organizing the data in a matrix format. Despite the structuring of the programs, faculty should be
given authority to modify and accommodate the courses according to their judgement. Lastly,
this paper also talks about alignment of teaching with assessment and grading, as well as learning
with student support services.
2. Houston, D., Meyer, L. H., & Paewai, S. (2006). Academic staff workloads and job
satisfaction: Expectations and values in academe. Journal of higher education policy and
management, 28(1), 17-30.
This study examines the approach of a university to the issue of its academic staff maintaining a
work-life balance as a result of engagement in complex tasks. The study triangulates three
sources of data on workload development, based on which the survey was designed. The staff
was also asked to answer questions on their job position, how much travelling is required, their
enrolment status in degree study, their nature of work etc alongside the main survey. The results
indicate that the staff have been extending their working time in order to accommodate for the

work demands placed upon them and elaborates on those claims with numerical data. The paper
ultimately discusses universities as complex organizations and the requirements that need to be
matched puts extra pressure on the faculty out of their working hours.
3. Rubie‐Davies, C., Hattie, J., & Hamilton, R. (2006). Expecting the best for students:
Teacher expectations and academic outcomes. British Journal of Educational
Psychology, 76(3), 429-444.
This study aims to explore expectation differences in teachers and their judgements of student
performance for students of different ethnicity. The sample was collected from 540 students of
21 primary teachers in Auckland where 261 belonged to New Zealand European, 88 Maoris, 97
Pacific Island and 94 Asian students. The teachers were required to complete a survey on their
students’ reading level expectations at the beginning of the year and judging them against the
actual outcomes of the students at the end of the year. The results show that the expectation were
significantly above the actual achievement of all the students except the Maori students, whose
gains were the least among their peers at the end of the year.
4. Crozier, A. J., & Spink, K. S. (2017). Effect of manipulating descriptive norms and
positive outcome expectations on physical activity of university students during exams.
Health communication, 32(6), 784-790.
This report examines the inter-message interactions that convey different levels of positive
expectations regarding outcome on university students while the student engages in moderate to
heavy physical activities during exam period. A pre-post design was used to assign students
entering a final examination period to four message conditions that asked them to exercise over
the exam period. The messages included descriptive norms regarding how many others reported