AUDITORS - Verifying the evidence related to specific claims

The Inquiry Brief includes the evidence the faculty uses to support its claims related to the program’s goal of preparing competent, qualified, and caring professionals as well as to support the claim that the institution has the capacity to offer a quality program. The auditors do not judge whether the claims are true or even credible. The auditors do not judge, for example, whether or not the program’s graduates understand pedagogy. They judge only whether the evidence (e.g., a mean score on a standardized test) the program faculty relies on to advance and support their claim that their graduates understand pedagogy was in fact the score the program’s graduates earned on the test and was just as the program faculty had reported it in the Inquiry Brief.

The audit entails the selection of some aspect of the Inquiry Brief text (the target) and probing it through a variety of possible actions.

Of course, situations will vary from site to site. Claims and the sources of data for claims that haven’t been anticipated may arise, and auditors may need to consider additional kinds of probes to use in their efforts to determine if the statements and evidence found in the Inquiry Brief are accurate.


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