The Continuing Evolution of Assessing Project Management as an Academic Learning Outcome (ALO)

Abstract

The last five years has seen most colleges and universities ask,” how can the outcomes it desires for graduates be assessed to ensure compliance with the educational standards they embrace.” Legislatures are directing universities and colleges to develop Academic Learning Outcomes (ALO) to meet the State’s Academic Learning Compacts being established in curriculums. Students must be able to demonstrate an ability accomplishing an ALO such as Project Management (PM), but a learning domain like this must be measureable. To evaluate PM, assessing many project management activities require an examination of complex processes required for the project’s completion. Our students do this by competing as teams in a business strategy simulation and being responsible for PM activities for success. This paper examines a year’s worth of progress toward an accurate measurement of the Project Management ALO using team members, not faculty, to rate each team member on PM activity performance. It is hopeful this evaluation with the final team simulation performance standings, can be used to assess if a PM ALO has an effect on final team simulation performance