Press Release from Primary Research Group, Inc.

Primary Research Group has published the Survey of Assessment Practices in 
Higher Education (ISBN#1-57440-100-9).   The Survey of Assessment Practices in 
Higher Education presents results from an assessment benchmarking study with more 
than 80 participants.  The study presents data on college assessment efforts, including 
but not limited to:  the size, budget and scope college assessment offices, salaries for 
assessment officers, number of employees working on assessment issues in and out of 
assessment offices, the use of standardized testing, types of tests used, use and type of 
remedial courses, use of incentives to take standardized assessment tests, use of instructor 
evaluation questionnaires and other methods of instructor evaluation, impact of 
assessment on merit-based pay, tenure and other personnel decisions; methods for 
evaluating adjunct and regular faculty; level of faculty involvement in assessment; impact 
of curriculum changes, use of survey software in assessment, use of assessment 
consultants, seminars and other services – and many other aspects of college assessment 
programs and policies.

Some of the many findings of this 110 page report are:

•	Two thirds of the colleges in the sample say that they require academic 
departments to develop an assessment plan identifying key concepts and ideas that 
students should master.  Only 3.57% say that they do not require this, and close to 
30% say that though they don’t require it, though they are working on it.

•	Community colleges were more likely to use software packages to aid in 
assessment, making up the majority of users for each package in the survey.

•	Remedial or developmental courses were more likely to be offered at small 
colleges, and community colleges.  100% of Community colleges polled offered such 
courses in Writing, and Mathematics.  69% offered courses in Study Skills, and 
nearly 77% offered remedial courses in English as a Second Language.  

•	More than of colleges in the sample said that they have an office of assessment, or 
similar department that primarily devotes itself to assessment.  

•	The mean number of full-time employees for the office of assessment was 1.9, 
with a median of 1.  

•	Close to half of the chief assessment officers in the sample earned salaries of 
between $61,000 and $99,000.

•	For the entire sample, the mean and median number of questions on the basic 
instructor evaluation form given to students was almost identical, at 20.62 and 20.0 
respectively.  The range was from two questions to sixty five!

•	8.64% of the colleges in the entire sample said that student faculty questionnaires 
had no impact on tenure decisions, while 26% said that they had significant impact. 
Another 14.81% said it had slight impact and a shade more than half said that it “has some impact.”  

•	The majority (61.90%) of the colleges in the entire sample exclusively used a 
paper format for the completion of assessment questionnaires.

•	53.16% of colleges in the sample said that student course evaluations don’t have 
much of an effect on merit pay increases for instructors, and 8.86% said that such 
evaluations are an important factor in merit pay decisions.  

•	For the entire sample, 32.05% said that determining the evaluation of adjunct 
faculty is left to each academic department, 20.51 percent said that the policy is 
determined by the college administration, and 37.18% said the decision is based on a 
mix of input from the departments and the administration.  

•	59.52% of the colleges in the sample use in class visits to evaluate adjunct 
instructors.

•	Slightly under two thirds of the entire sample said that their school has one or 
more centers to develop faculty teaching skills.  

•	Student Satisfaction surveys were performed by the majority of colleges in the 
sample.  
•	Community Colleges spent the most by far; on outside assessment consultants, 
more than twice as much as the mean spending for the entire sample.  

•	Research Universities conducted vastly more interviews than any other type of 
school, with 3,381 mean interviews, to the next highest of 938.5 mean interviews 
conducted by Community Colleges.  

The report is based on detailed benchmarking data from more than 80 North 
American colleges; data is broken out by type and size of college for easier 
benchmarking.  The report is available directly from Primary Research Group Inc, 
or from major book distributors.  For a table of contents, sample pages, and other 
information, visit our website at www.primaryresearch.com.

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