Assessment
Assessment Policy Statement
The College for Financial Planning engages in academic and administrative assessment to create a culture of continuous improvement that helps the College to achieve its mission of being the provider of choice for financial education to individuals in the financial services industry. Assessment is conducted to ensure the College is responsive to its students, employees, and regulators. College faculty and staff are empowered to participate in assessment by supportive College leadership and are provided with resources to facilitate meaningful assessment activities. Negative assessment results are used to frame conversations about institutional improvement and are never used to take any punitive action against an individual or unit. Assessment processes are dynamic and evolve to facilitate continuous improvement and to meet the changing needs of the College and its stakeholders and regulators.
Assessment of Student Learning
The process of systematically gathering, analyzing, and interpreting evidence through the use of formative and summative methods is embedded in the curriculum to determine how well student learning matches our expectations and we use that information to make improvements to programs and thus improvements to student learning.
Program Assessment
The OIRE oversees all formal institutional processes for program assessment of student learning, a requirement of institutional accreditation by the HLC. All College programs are required to provide:
- program learning objectives that describe graduate-level professional competencies
- curriculum maps that indicate where students will be given opportunities to practice and master program competencies
- assessment maps that indicate the types of formative and summative assessments and performance standards that will be used to assess student performance
- annual reports to document whether students are achieving program competencies and, if not, provide program improvement action plans to address areas of concern
Program Review
All College programs, including professional designation programs, the CFP certification education program, and all master’s degrees are required to participate in an internal and external program review process. Designation and master’s programs participate in a 3- or 4-year program review cycle due to the rapidity of changes in the financial services industry.
The purpose of the program reviews is to ensure that all programs present evidence that they are maintaining education program content and skills with changing market needs as well as maintaining quality of content, instructional methods, and assessments. Programs must show evidence that market reach, admissions, enrollment, progress, and graduation processes are working well. Programs must show evidence that faculty qualifications and number are matched with program education requirements and enrollment. Finally, programs must show evidence that financial resources are sufficient to meet instructional and enrollment needs. Programs must develop improvement action plans for any areas where evidence shows deficiencies.
College Surveys
The OIRE designs, delivers, and reports on a suite of student, graduation, and alumni surveys to ensure stakeholder input on program and institutional improvement processes. The following surveys are maintained by the office:
Student Engagement Survey
This survey includes affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement questions, as well as questions about conditions that facilitate student engagement.
Student Engagement Report – 2018 [Link]
Student Engagement Report – 2017 [Link]
Student Engagement Report – 2016 [Link]
Student satisfaction with College services survey
This survey measures satisfaction with the College’s services, including the Student Services Center, advising and enrollment, account assistance, the College library, technology, testing (for CFP and designation students), and the communication and grievance processes.
Services Satisfaction Survey Report – 2019 [Link]
Services Satisfaction Survey Report – 2018 [Link]
Services Satisfaction Survey Report – 2016 [Link]
Graduation survey
The graduation survey is sent to master’s-level students after successful completion of their final course; it asks students why they chose to pursue a degree at the College, how well their coursework developed relevant knowledge and skills, their satisfaction with the College and their program, and their postgraduation plans.
GDP Graduate Survey Report – 2018 [Link]
GDP Graduate Survey Report – 2017 [Link]
GDP Graduate Survey Report – 2016 [Link]
Student Engagement Survey
Sent to alumni of the College’s graduate programs approximately every 5 years, this survey asks alumni their reasons for earning a degree at the College, employment information at present and prior to earning a degree, how well their degree prepared them for their work, the extent to which their education helped them develop relevant knowledge and skills, and whether they would recommend the College’s graduate programs.
Alumni Survey Report – 2015 [Link]
Withdrawal and stop-out surveys
The withdrawal survey is sent to students who withdraw from the master’s-level programs. Students are asked the reasons for their withdrawal and what the College could have done to improve their experience.
The stop-out survey is sent to master’s-level students who have not enrolled in a course for two or more terms. Students are asked the reasons for their nonenrollment and what would make it possible for them to begin taking courses again.
Please contact Rebecca Henderson (rebecca.henderson@cffp.edu) regarding questions about the surveys.
- Program assessment [link to process & template]
- Program review [link to process & template]
- Course review [link to process & template]
- Instructor and course evaluations [link to process & template]
- Exam item analysis [link to process & template]