Commitment to assessment

Messiah is committed to improving student learning inside and outside of the classroom by continually assessing and improving our programming.

The need for assessment in today’s educational environment is driven by both our internal motivation and by pragmatic external factors. Internally, as a community of educators we want to know that:

• our educational methods and programs are high quality,
• our students succeed during their time here at Messiah,
• our students are well-prepared for their lives, careers, and continued education after they graduate,
• data and evidence drive our decisions for improving programs, and
• we accomplish our mission in the lives of our students.

Accreditors for specific majors and programs, along with our institutional accreditor require us to assess student learning. Both the Pennsylvania State Department of Education and the federal government also support the use of assessment to improve education and view assessment as integral to the teaching and learning process.

Demonstrating our institutional effectiveness helps us plan and navigate through challenging times. As a part of our commitment to improvement and transparency, we share the following information using the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) transparency framework.