What do LPDs Commonly Evaluate and Why?

Whatever aspect of a language program you choose to evaluate, evaluation should answer a question that matters to you. Common evaluation questions for LPDs relate to student, instructor, and program success.

Program Success: Does the Program Meet Stakeholders’ Needs?

LPDs and their programs serve many stakeholders. First, of course, are the students who are there to learn the course content. Instructors are also a key stakeholder group because they deliver your program to students, so the program’s quality depends on their efforts. 

In addition, LPDs and their colleagues in the broader undergraduate language program are essential stakeholders who build on the lower-level courses, which feed student enrollment in upper-level courses and prepare students for more advanced coursework. Even more broadly, the department is a stakeholder that may rely on income from lower-level courses to support smaller enrollments elsewhere and to raise the department’s profile and influence at the college level. 

Finally, other programs that rely on lower-level language courses can be stakeholders. Examples include the general education program, teacher education programs, cultural studies programs like Latino/a or Latin American studies, or the health sciences. The relative importance of each stakeholder group will vary with the language program’s institutional context, which in turn affects how the LPD decides to evaluate the program.

Who are the most important stakeholder groups in your language program’s context? Pull down to choose the items in the list below that represent your program’s priorities. What information about your program would be useful to each group?

• Choose Priority 1 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 2 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 3 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 4 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 5 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 6 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 7 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)
• Choose Priority 8 Students Program instructors Department instructors/faculty Department or college administrators Colleagues in other departments or units Community partners Specialized or institutional accreditors Others   (Add your information sources here.)

The program evaluation information you share with each of those groups may overlap to some extent, but will also differ in other areas. Evidence related to student learning and instructor performance was discussed earlier, so the focus here will be on program evaluation in relation to other stakeholders. 

LPDs and departmental colleagues want students to continue into higher-level courses. For that reason, a very basic evaluation measure is retention rate: 

• How many students do versus do not complete the full lower-level sequence? 
• How many students from the lower-level courses continue into upper-level courses? 
• Where and for whom are retention breakdowns happening? 

Programs can use this information to probe further into why students don’t continue past a certain point, and to make decisions about curriculum design and future course offerings. Similarly, this information is useful in arguing for future staffing needs and budgetary support.

Another possible source of evidence is student, affiliate program, or employer surveys or focus groups to gather information about their perceptions of the skills and knowledge students do or should have. Responses can help diagnose (mis)matches between what the program is offering and what students and employers want from the program. That information in turn can guide an LPD’s decisions about course materials and professional development for instructors.