Assessment in the Era of Neoliberalism: Examining the Value and Institutionalization of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment at the University of Redlands, School of Business and Society
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this qualitative case study, I explore, from a scholar’s point of view, the student learning outcome (SLO) assessment processes at the University of Redlands, School of Business & Society (School). I examine the degree to which the SLO assessment processes at the School have been institutionalized at the School, the value of SLO assessment to the various stakeholders, and the limitations of SLO assessment as they relate to improving learning outcomes. This study is evaluated through the theoretical lens of Neoliberalism. I utilized the case study research methodology because it is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon (the ‘case’) in depth and within its real-world context” (Yin, 2015, p.16). I conducted semi-structured interviews with over 20 participants, including faculty, nontenured faculty, students, alumni, and administrators. My study reveals that while the institutionalized SLO assessment regime is firmly in place at the School, it is undervalued and not being used to continuously improve student learning outcomes. This is due, in part, to the influence of Neoliberal policies and practices that enable the School to meet its institutional need of satisfying accreditors but which do not meet the needs of other stakeholders, such as the nontenured faculty and the students. By adhering to accreditation guidelines, the faculty and administration have employed an overly structured assessment regime that is not transparent to nontenured faculty, students, or the greater community. Leadership at the School ought to seize the opportunity to review and reset the SLO processes as soon as possible to break the grip of Neoliberalism and institute a more wholistic view of student education that is focused on continuous quality improvement. Dedication To my fiancée Karen, her mother “Dottie,” and her brother Craig, for their unconditional love and unwavering support throughout this project. To my family in Nova Scotia, Canada, my parents and grandparents, my brother, Stephen, his wife MaryEllen, Peter, Casey, and their families. To my aunt Shirley, my uncle Earl, and to my cousins, Dixie, David and his wife Kim, and Rodney. I am so proud to be able to dedicate this work to all of you.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".