Developing indicators for assessing student learning outcomes quality in Syrian universities

Quality in higher education has become a target for all universities in the world. Student learning outcomes are rapidly taking center stage as the principal gauge of higher education’s effectiveness. Research has mainly focused on the quality of inputs and processes in higher education, but does not provide a sufficient attention to the outcomes (the level of graduates). In order to address this issue, we developed some possible indicators to evaluate the quality of education outcomes (in courses, classes, faculty, and university) by analyzing students’ grades as proxies of student learning outcomes (SLO). We were able to adopt several indicators that rely on calculating the means and ratios of students' degrees in courses, classes, faculty, and university. In addition, we provided suitable indicators to assess the quality of learning outcomes for graduates and distinguished students, and estimate the ratio of distinction using special calculations for graduates and distinguished students.