Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University College Portrait
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityBlacksburg, VA 24061
(540) 231-6267
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- Students
Find out more about the characteristics of students who attend VT.
- Admissions
See how many students applied, accepted, and enrolled at VT. Learn more about students’ high school preparation and test scores.
- College Costs & Financial Aid
Learn about costs to attend VT and how much financial aid is typically awarded.
- College Cost Estimator
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- Classes and Campus Life
Learn more about professors, where students live, and campus safety at VT.
- Student Experiences
Discover ways to be actively involved in your education at VT – inside and outside the classroom.
- Majors, Graduation and Next Steps
See which majors are most popular at VT and what recent graduates plan to do after earning their bachelor's degree.
- Student Success & Progress
Discover how many students who start at VT finish their bachelor's degree and how long it takes.
- Student Learning Outcomes
Figure out what learning gains to expect in critical thinking, writing, and other important subjects at VT.
- VSA SLO Pilot Project Experience at VT
Student Learning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
All colleges and universities use multiple approaches to measure student learning. Many of these are specific to particular disciplines, many are coordinated with accrediting agencies, and many are based on outcomes after students have graduated.
All degree programs have developed assessment processes to improve student learning. These continuous improvement processes consist of identifying student learning outcomes, identifying/developing measures of those outcomes, measuring the outcomes, using the results to identify areas of change, making appropriate changes, and continuing the process by measuring student learning again. The process has developed differently for different programs. For example, the majority of programs have collected data to measure their outcomes and to inform change. Other programs have used the process initially to make explicit changes in focus and direction and have spent more time re-writing outcomes, developing measurement instruments, and, in several cases, rewriting curriculum to map on to those more explicitly developed outcomes.
In addition to assessment in degree programs, the University also evaluates student learning in six core areas of competency as specified by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV). These areas include Written Communication, Oral Communication, Quantitative Reasoning, Critical Thinking, and Information Technology Literacy.
Current information on Virginia Tech's approach to the assessment of these competencies can be found on SCHEV's web site.
Learning Assessment Examples
Pilot Project to Measure Core Learning Outcomes
Colleges and universities participating in the College Portrait measure the typical improvement in students' abilities to think, reason, and write using one of three tests. This is part of a 4-year pilot project to better understand and compare what students learn between their freshman and senior years at different colleges and universities.
As the pilot project comes to a close, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot project within the College Portrait and to disclose the results to the public. All VSA participating institutions are encouraged to report their results; VT's report on their pilot experiences is available here. Institutions who have not posted SLO results from one of the three VSA approved value-added pilot measures by the end of September 2012 are required to report their results here.
Our institutional approach to the measurement of student learning is campus-based and improvement-oriented. We have found the AAC&U rubrics to be a much better tool for providing us meaningful data that will inform improvement of teaching and learning.