Anatomy of an MBA Program Capstone Project Assessment Measure for AACSB Accreditation

Abstract

There is very little written about assessment measures business schools use for assessing their programs that not only helps them meet the assessment criteria necessary for AACSB accreditation but also helps them improve the curriculum to build top-tier successful programs. This paper informs the literature on the assessment measure (and process) used by an MBA program to assess student learning through end-of-program capstone projects; success that is demonstrated by stabilized enrollments and a recent top-tier ranking. This paper is useful to any graduate or undergraduate business program that chooses to use capstone projects as an assessment measure to earn or renew AACSB accreditation. Following guidelines suggested by Banta (2004, 2007, 2011) and Polomba and Banta, (1999) a defined process is implemented to collect, assess, and disseminate assessment data to improve the MBA curriculum.