Sample Academic Audit Questions

Determining Desired Learning Outcomes

What are the goals of the course or program and how do they relate to student needs?

1. Define education quality in terms of student outcomes. Have you consciously considered what students need in order to be successful in their chosen field and acquire meaningful values and social skills?
2. Base decisions on facts wherever possible. Do you look beyond the standards of your discipline to seek input on goals? For example, do you use surveys or focus group interviews with employers or former students? Are the results documented so you can learn from its experience?
3. Identify and learn from best practice. Do you evaluate student outcome goals of comparable departments in other institutions?

Designing Course Content and Department Curricula

What is to be taught, in what order, and from what perspective? What resources and resource materials will be used as content vehicles? How does the design relate to other courses the student will take as part of his or her program?

1. Work collaboratively to achieve mutual involvement and support. Do you collaborate effectively on curricular design? Are you able to reach agreement on the essential elements of design, or does the design represent a compromise of expediency?
2. Identify and Learn from Best Practice. Do you evaluate curricula of comparable departments in other institutions?
3. Make regular improvement a top priority. Do you reconsider curricular decisions systematically, on a regular basis?

Designing Teaching and Learning Processes

How are teaching and learning organized? What methods are used for first exposure to material, for answering questions and providing interpretation, for stimulating student interaction with the material, and for providing feedback on student work? What roles and responsibilities will do various faculty members need to assume. What other resources are required?

1. Focus on the actual process of teaching and learning. Do you analyze their teaching and learning processes on a regular basis-e.g., by developing flowcharts and debating "what-if" options? Do you emphasize active learning? Do you ask whether the right people are doing the right things and address the tradeoffs between resource utilization and outcomes? Do you act promptly on good ideas?
2. Strive for coherence in the department's curriculum and educational processes. Do the various process steps reinforce each other? Do teaching and learning processes appear coherent to students?
3. Work collaboratively to achieve mutual involvement and support. Do you collaborate effectively on process design? Do you readily reach agreement on the essential elements of design or does the design represent a compromise of expediency? Does the department achieve organizational learning from the experience of its members, or is process improvement a "lone wolf" activity?

Developing and Using Student Assessment

What measures and indicators are used to assess student learning? Do they assess value added, or only performance at the end of the program? How are the long-term outcomes of the educational experience determined? Are baseline and trend information available? Who is responsible for assessment?

1. Define education quality in terms of student outcomes. Have you defined "key quality indicators" based on your student outcomes goals? Do your assessment measures provide data needed to track the indicators? Do they measure learning that takes place on your watch, as opposed to measuring quality and preparation of the student?
2. Base decisions on facts wherever possible. Are your assessment processes grounded in the literature wherever possible? Can you defend your choice of assessment measures by some appropriate combination of theory, experience, and experimentation?
3. Identify and learn from best practice. Do you evaluate assessment practices of comparable departments in other institutions?

Implementing Quality Education

How are you organized to carry out your designs effectively, day in and day out, regardless of distractions? How can you assure themselves and others that content is delivered as intended, that teaching and learning processes are being implemented consistently, and that assessments are performed as planned and their results used effectively?

1. Work collaboratively to achieve mutual involvement and support. Do you collaborate effectively on the design of quality assurance methods? Do you work with colleagues to interpret the results and take appropriate actions based on quality assurance results?
2. Identify and Learn from Best Practice. Do you evaluate the quality assurance practices of comparable departments in other institutions?
3. Make continuous quality improvement a top priority. Do you reconsider your quality assurance processes systematically, on a regular basis?