Office of Assessment

About Office of Assessment

The Director of the Office of Assessment, Dr. Simi Gunaseelan works closely with individual faculty, course coordinators, Office of Academic Affairs, Office of Experiential Education, Office of Student Affairs, Office of Student Success and the Executive Committee to promote continuous assessment of programmatic goals and student achievement. The Director collaborates with the Outcomes Assessment Committee, Curricular Affairs Committee, Experiential Education Committee, Interprofessional Education Committee and OSCE Advisory Committee to conduct and facilitate course and instructional development and assessment (didactic as well as experiential). The Director also works closely and collaboratively with the Texas A&M Institutional Effectiveness and Evaluation team to advance the school’s assessment efforts and provide leadership and support to ensure that the assessment program is of the highest quality.

Activities coordinated by the Office of Assessment include:

1. Manage and lead the school’s assessment activities and programmatic accreditation initiatives.
2. Develop and implement a systematic student learning outcomes assessment plan for both curriculum (didactic as well as experiential) and co-curriculum.
3. Work with faculty and administration in mapping, assessing and auditing the curriculum (didactic as well as experiential) and co-curriculum to meet ACPE standards.
4. Oversee and coordinate programmatic assessments (i.e., research and clinical practice/services; student/alumni/faculty/preceptor satisfaction; faculty/preceptor development; student admissions, etc.).
5. Identify appropriate instruments to assess student achievement and curricular and co-curricular effectiveness; develop feedback mechanism to improve these measures and establish timelines for achievements of the outcomes.
6. Identify and refine instruments and methods to assess program effectiveness.
7. Develop and maintain an electronic data warehouse of assessment information and reports, including AAMS.

Assessment (both formative and summative) is the means by which the school determines if the curriculum learning outcomes are being achieved. Although a variety of performance measures are evaluated over the course of the curriculum, it is the Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCEs), Benchmark exams - internal and external including PCOA (NABP) and Pre-NAPLEX (NABP), Pharmacy Licensure Exam (NAPLEX and MPJE) and preceptor evaluations of students in experiential settings that are the hallmark assessments of curricular effectiveness and student achievement.