College Committee - SBS

Details

Date
2006-11-14
Time
Location
Agenda
3-4pm, Derby 1039
Agenda
Assessment
Notes

Present: Haddad, David, Vasey, Mumy, McGraw, Liddle, Cox, Davis, Bellair, Steckel, Mercerhill

Guests: Collier,  DeYoung,  Nygren, Adelson,  Paulsen

  1. Assessment
    1. Changes to exit survey and plans welcome
    2. Overview of Department Assessment

                                                               i.      Anthropology

1.       401- One section taught by Professor, other GA

a.       2 questions embedded into course required by all majors

b.      Will watch overtime as sample size increases

2.      Low return on surveys but will be keeping eye on Archaeology course because of poor feedback from students

3.      Question of how far into major assessment should be done to accurately reflect knowledge of content

                                                             ii.      Communication and Journalism

1.      SBS & ASC exit surveys

a.       3.8-4.1 satisfaction of majors on 5.0 scale

2.      Survey of internship coordinators asking how prepared students are

a.       How biased are the responses from internship coordinators?

3.      Discussing requiring students to write essay in 101 and 200 for a better assessment of course than majors

4.      Internships well developed and have strong alumni base

                                                            iii.      Criminology and Sociology

1.      3 data sources

a.       Exit survey, alumni survey (3-5 years out), and standardized tests

b.      Looking into doing surveys in lab classes in 3 core areas

                                                                                                                                       i.      Theory, methods and statistics

c.       Students did well in statistics, but not as well in the other 2

                                                                                                                                       i.      Likely effected by the fact that grad students taught those courses

                                                                                                                                     ii.      Might need to change exams to be more accurate or change TA training

d.      Alumni survey replicated of much of the exit survey but more focused on education

To what extent do students know what the goals and objectives of the major are?

                                                           iv.      Economics

1.      Exit survey

a.       Students are satisfied

2.      Going to increase dialogue about what the field is about and student expectations

a.       What misconceptions are the students bringing with them?

b.      Will look to revise advertising of who we are and what we do as more data is gathers

c.       Looking to be more “bottom up”

                                                                                                                                       i.      Start with more freshman level courses to get students interested

3.      Outside review took place - waiting for report

4.      Increasing internship opportunities to help students choose career paths

5.      Looking at embedding questions and pre-post tests      

6.      Would like to do a study of students in education through post graduation

7.      Suggested that they “reverse track” students

a.       essay written before graduation then look back to what course work was completed

                                                             v.      Geography

1.      Plan hasn’t been implemented

2.      Exit surveys done

3.      Looking at how to train GTAs

As plans are refined, think about differences between BA and BS degrees
External reviews should be used in reports

                                                           vi.      Political Science

1.      Exit Survey

2.      All information is student perception

3.      Adjusted advising walk-in hours on students’ recommendations

4.      Challenged by flat structure of major

a.       Students are not fully comfortable with lack of structure and are not sure they’d be comfortable with more structure

b.      Undergrad studies comm. will be discussing goals and objectives and clarifying the mission of program

                                                          vii.      Psychology

1.      ETS Major Field Exam

a.       Students self-select into, mostly those           planning on going into grad school

National organizations and goals for undergrad curriculum, suggested that others look into their organization for goals
 

  1. University will be making move to have all major goals on website
  1. As working on plans for future - use questions to drive plans
    1. What is it that you want to find out?
    2. What am I concerned about? 
  1. Work on getting more direct measures
  1. Alexis will be glad to talk to people about the assessment process