Closing the Loop or Jumping Through Hoops: The Impact of Assessment on the Legal Studies Curricula

• Published date: 01 January 2016
• Author: Donna Steslow,Nancy Lasher,Sue Kong
• Date: 01 January 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jlse.12036

Journal of Legal Studies Education

Volume 33, Issue 1, 97–127, Winter 2016

Closing the Loop or Jumping

Through Hoops: The Impact

of Assessment on the Legal

Studies Curricula

Donna Steslow,∗Nancy Lasher,∗∗ and Sue Kong∗∗∗

I. INTRODUCTION

Outcomes assessment has become a mandatory part of the life of business

school faculty and administrators. Accrediting bodies, government agencies,

and parents and students want to know what knowledge and skills tuition dol-

lars are providing. Ideally, assessment should provide for curricular improve-

ment, but in some cases assessment may be nothing more than a mechanism

for pressuring faculty to teach to a particular measuring device. “Business

schools have become no different from any other profession in likewise ex-

periencing their curriculum driven by tests for assessment or licensure in

each specific field.”1

While assessment is normally conducted at a programmatic (degree,

or institution-wide) level, it is interesting and informative to learn where

specific courses fit into assessment and how those courses have been adjusted

in response to data collected in the assessment process. As members of the

Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB), it was of particular interest to

research how the courses we teach (Business Law and Legal Environment of

Business, in particular) fit into the assessment scheme of business programs.

∗Associate Professor, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

∗∗Associate Professor, The College of New Jersey.

∗∗∗

Associate Professor, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.

1Henry Lowenstein, Building the Manager’s ToolBox: Reflections of a Former Business Dean on the State

of the Law in the Business Curriculum, 30 J. LEGAL STUD.EDUC. 347, 353 (2013).

C2016 The Authors

Journal of Legal Studies Education C2016 Academy of Legal Studies in Business

97

98 Vol. 33 / The Jour nal of Legal Studies Education

A survey of members of ALSB was conducted, and the data was collected and

analyzed.

This article first describes the assessment process in general and as-

sessment of business programs in particular. Next, the assessment survey of

members of the ALSB is discussed and interpreted. Several hypotheses are

then tested by correlating responses to key questions. Finally, we discuss areas

for future research, which the survey and its results have generated.

II. ASSESSMENT OF THE BUSINESS CURRICULA

Assessment, also known as Assurance of Learning, has become a fixture

of higher education. With the ever-increasing cost of college, accreditation

bodies, students, parents, and the U.S. government want to know that colleges

and universities are delivering the skills and knowledge that these institutions

claim they are providing. President Barak Obama has called for a national

rating system based upon graduation rates, student loan debt, and starting

salaries after graduation.2Deputy Undersecretary of Education Jamienne

Studley told college presidents that using a government-devised system to

rate higher educational institutions would make rating colleges no more

complicated than “rating a blender.”3

Although assessment is sometimes confused with the process of grading,

the two are different. “[A]ssessment is, first of all, an empirical process, not an

evaluative act. There are five essential steps in this process: 1) the articulation

of the desired learning outcomes; 2) collection of evidence that will show

whether the outcomes have been achieved, and at what level of proficiency;

3) analysis and interpretation of the evidence; and 4) use of the evidence

for improvement and—if necessary—accountability. Finally, 5) the results of

step 4 are checked to see whether they had the desired effect.”4Assessment,

whether conducted at the course, program, or school level is a macrolevel

process. Grading relates to individual courses and individual instructors and

is a professor’s judgment of a student’s work.5

2Michael D. Shear, Colleges Rattled as Obama Seeks Rating System,N.Y.TIMES, May 26, 2014, at A1.

3Id.

4Barbara Wright, Letters,CHRON.HIGHER EDUC., Mar. 18, 2013, available at

http://chronicle.com/blogs/letters/in-defense-of-assessment/.

5Id.