The Penn State Harrisburg School of Business Administration’s commitment to assure and enhance student learning in its undergraduate and graduate programs has earned high praise from the world’s leading accrediting organization.
AACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business – has formally commended the school’s initiative to gauge the extent of student learning and the effectiveness of instruction in its programs, terming it a “best practice” and indicating the practice may be of interest to other educators.
The accreditors’ comments included: “The team was impressed with the school’s (learning) assessment program” and “the programs run solely by the Harrisburg campus are outstanding.”
The endorsement came as a result of the AACSB peer review of the School of Business Administration, an ingredient in the maintenance of accreditation. “The reviewers were very impressed,” reports interim director of the school, Stephen P. Schappe, who adds “It is one thing to feel we’re doing it right, but much better to have the people holding us accountable tell us we’re doing it right.”
He continues, “For years, higher education has developed curricula and courses in response to business, industry, and students, assuming that if we teach it, students learn it. We’ve regularly surveyed students, alumni, and our advisory boards on what kind of job we were doing. But these are indirect measures.
“The big change came in 2003 when AACSB emphasized ‘assurance of learning,’ and mandated all accredited institutions develop internal measures to judge their students’ level of learning. They said ‘keep doing what you have been doing, but also use direct measures to assess and quantify student learning’. Just examining course grades and survey data was not always a total assessment of learning.”
Learning goals and objectives were established by the school in response to the new AACSB accreditation standards. Since that time, the school has developed a series of direct measurement techniques and created an assessment committee. “The learning goals should reflect those skills and knowledge areas that are most valued and should be demonstrated by graduates as a result of their overall, total educational experience,” Dr. Schappe adds. “We look at how to integrate learning goals across disciplines, how to identify problems, and how to solve them. We set student learning goals and go about determining whether or not they are achieving them.”
“AACSB does not dictate what you teach,” Dr. Schappe points out. “We work with students, alumni, and employers to develop our learning goals and then use the information to plan improvement efforts. Learning goals are stated up front for all courses in the school, which lead to goals for all our majors which, in turn, contribute to learning goals for the degree. That’s where we are held accountable. For instance, our students and graduates must be effective communicators and critical thinkers.”
“The point of the process is to identify things we do well and things we can improve upon. It makes us show evidence we are doing our jobs as educators and continuously improving our programs. It’s a fact-driven process,” Dr. Schappe concludes.
The School of Business Administration is home to five baccalaureate business majors, two baccalaureate Information Sciences and Technology majors, five different business minors, and two master’s degrees.
