Designing Assessment for Postmodern Academia: Examining How a Move to a Postmodern Qualitative Assessment Changed a Department

Abstract

It is our belief that the story of how the composition faculty convinced administration to move from a rubric-based assessment model to a more qualitative model is both interesting and beneficial for others facing similar challenges. In the following five articles, Katie discusses how the experience of such assessment affected the faculty, Jeff shows why we decided to try qualitative assessment and how we succeeded in convincing administration to let us try this alternative path, Krystia explains how and why we chose a postmodern methodology, Karen summarizes what we learned from the assessment, and Marjie poses some results and concluding thoughts.