4. Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Module 4 – Analyzing and Interpreting the Data

The previous module, Collecting Data on Students’ Learning, dealt with the process of generating findings. Findings are merely the facts and empirical evidence of your investigation. To be of use in the process of curriculum evaluation, those findings will have to be interpreted so that judgments and then recommendations for improvement might be made.

This module differs from the ones that come before in that the content is restricted to the practice of question-generation. We did so because the quality of the questions asked during the process of program evaluation influence the types of data collected and the interpretations and recommendations made. Use your program’s purpose statement as the basis from which to ask questions about the effectiveness of programming and students’ learning. When the answers to your questions begin to emerge, the next step in the process is identifying recommendations and actions for program improvement.is a platform on which to build additional inquiry.

These primary eight questions are designed to guide you in analyzing and interpreting your data. Each of the eight primary questions is supplemented with additional considerations to guide interpretations, judgements and program recommendations. The questions in this module will start your process in:

  • Identify themes, patterns, associations, gaps, and redundancies in your programs’ curricula
  • Interpret trends and discrepancies in data from different sources

In an outcomes-based curriculum such as those now required for engineering schools in Canada it is important to be able to show a direct relationship among the Graduate Attributes, indicators, instructional methods and activities, assessment activities and student performance. That being the case, evaluating the curriculum means asking the question: To what extent does the design of the curriculum accomplish what it was intended to accomplish? Once you’re able to determine the ways in which the curriculum was successful, it’s equally important to follow up with the question of “what went wrong and why?”.

View the Live Workshop on Analyzing Graduate Attribute Data: