EVALUATION OF PROGRAM OUTCOMES IN THE ACCREDITATION PROCESS: A RESEARCH ON THE CASE OF ATATURK UNIVERSITY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

Abstract

Program accreditation in higher education, which determines the extent to which academic and vocational standards in a particular field are met by a higher education program by an accreditation body; measurement, evaluation and external quality assurance process. There are some criteria used in evaluation in accreditation processes of higher education programs. One of these criteria is program outputs. Program outcomes are the knowledge, skills and behaviors that a higher education program provides to its students during their education. The aim of this study is to examine the program output determination, update and measurement-evaluation processes carried out as part of the accreditation studies of the Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Design of Atatürk University. Within the scope of the study, the accreditation self-assessment report of the department, department quality commission reports and stakeholder meeting reports were examined and a survey was conducted to reach the program outputs. With the study, it has been evaluated that accreditation processes can play a pioneering role in establishing certain standards for landscape architecture education and developing measures by continuously monitoring the quality of education with measurement and evaluation methods. In addition, it has been concluded that an evaluation based on the opinions of the faculty members and students at the graduation stage will be insufficient in evaluating the level of achievement of the program outputs, and it will be more accurate to apply for the opinions of graduates who have graduated from the program and have at least 1-2 years of working experience in the sector.