Outcomes assessment has become a critical issue in higher education during the past few years, and graduate programs in public administration must demonstrate their effectiveness. Al though it is often assumed that schools have little experience with assessment, a substantial number of public administration schools occasionally use a variety of techniques to evaluate their outcomes. Schools use assessment for program planning or revision and for accreditation, although no formal link with the NASPAA accreditation process exists. The authors recommend a decentralized model that would require schools to use outcomes assessment but would give them wide latitude in defining and measuring results.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business. (1987). Ten year effort produces outcome measurement tools . AACSB Newsline, St. Louis.
2.
American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business. (1988). Board votes to continue core curriculum assessment program (CCAP). AACSB Newsline, St. Louis .
3.
American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business. (1989). Report of the AACSB Task Force on outcome measurement . St. Louis.
4.
American Council on Education. (1990). Campus Trends.
5.
Bloom, A. (1987). The closing of the American mind. New York: Simon and Schuster.
6.
Council on Post Secondary Accreditation. ( 1987). The COPA handbook, part II: A guide to the COPA review process. Washington, D.C.
7.
Ewell, P. (1985, November/December). Assessment: What's it all about ? Change, 32-36.
8.
Hartle, T.W. (1985). The growing interest in measuring the educational achievement of college students. In Assessment in American Higher EducationWashington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.
Jennings, E.T., Jr. (1989, September/October). Accountability, program quality, outcome assessment, and graduate education for public affairs and administration. Public Administration Review, 49(5), 438-46.
11.
Levine, C. & Kleeman, R. (1987). The quiet crisis: The federal workforce in the year 2000. In An Occasional Paper of the National Academy of Public Administration . Washington, D.C.: The National Academy of Public Administration.
12.
National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. (1988). Standards for professional masters degree programs in public affairs and administration. Washington.
13.
National Commission on the Public Service. ( 1990). Leadership for America: Rebuilding the public service . Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books .
14.
Sykes, C. (1988). Profscam: Professors and the demise of higher education. Washington, D.C.: Regency Gateway.
15.
U.S. General Accounting Office. (1990, November). Pay for performance: State and international public sector pay for performance systems. Washington, D.C.
