Work in progress - Assessment of a leadership curriculum

Lawrence Technological University has implemented a required four year leadership curriculum for all undergraduate students based on the University’s Leadership Education Goals and the Relational Model of Leadership. This investigation is assessing individual components of the curriculum, which include courses and co-curricular elements, as well as the impact of the curriculum as a whole. The primary tool for assessment is the author developed Leadership Self-Perception Assessment Instrument. Through pilot testing, the instrument has been proven to be temporally stable and internally consistent. The instrument will aid in answering many research questions which cover how students perceive their own leadership traits and skills, whether students are demonstrating growth in confidence in those skills through each component of the curriculum, the impact of the entire four-year leadership curriculum, and the modifications necessary to the curriculum to adequately address the student learning outcomes. Therefore, the instrument will be used for both formative and summative assessment and facilitate a longitudinal study of the leadership growth of the students. A pilot test of the instrument revealed that the students perceived an improvement in some leadership skills upon completion of one component of the curriculum. This paper will focus on pilot test results as well as set the stage for the longitudinal investigation. Index Terms – Assessment, Educational research, Leadership education, Survey development