Physics department culture of assessment and change: Results from the EP3 Chair's Survey

The APS Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) Project Team surveyed chairs at physics-degree-granting departments nationwide to assess their perspectives on assessment practices and departmental change. Chairs perceived the assessment of student learning and departmental program outcomes as largely driven by compliance and as not leading to valuable change. However, chairs' visions of ideal assessment practices and department change processes largely align with the guiding principles of the EP3 Project (https://ep3guide.org/get-started). Our results show that chairs' vision for an ideal department was largely misaligned with their current modes of operation. The cultural practices with the most potential for improvement were 1) engaging multiple stakeholders and 2) using data effectively. Chairs also perceived program review as being a valuable practice, generally approached as an opportunity for improvement, and resulting in positive change for the department. These results provide us a baseline for current practices and attitudes in physics departments, as well as a baseline measuring change as a result of the release of the EP3 Guide (ep3guide.org).