Student Outcomes Assessment
in the College of Letters and Science
1999-2000
Summary
of Departmental Reports
All degree-granting departments and programs in the
College of Letters and Science were asked to submit reports of their
assessment activities during academic year 1999-2000.
Reports were submitted via e-mail and were edited to create this
summary report. Where necessary, additional information was obtained from
prior assessment reports, program review materials and departmental
newsletters.
Degree-Offering Programs
Astronomy
Two years ago, the Department of Astronomy conducted a
comprehensive set of exit interviews with graduating majors.
These students were asked for suggestions as to how to improve the
major. Since then, the
Department has tried to implement suggestions that were not only commonly
expressed but also appeared to be feasible. These changes include:
1.
Offering courses that can eventually become Writing
Intensive courses (should that becomes a requirement).
2.
Increasing the level of involvement of undergraduates in
research.
3.
Changes in the scheduling (from Spring to Fall and visa
versa) of courses that are given only in alternate years to improve access.
4.
Changes in times courses are given to minimize conflicts
with core courses in other departments, most notably Physics.
All these have been done and seem to be having the
intended effect.
Heretofore, student evaluations have been used primarily
for purposes of merit and tenure assessment of faculty.
The Department is now considering how these may be used to evaluate
satisfaction in the major.
The Department has also begun to track statistics of
graduate school admission of majors. Although
the number of students who go on to graduate school is small (typically
about 3 to 5 per year), student grade point averages seem to predict
admission, and most students admitted are awarded assistantships.
The Department plans to conduct another set of exit
interviews toward the end of this year.
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
The
AOS departmental assessment plan calls for use of exit questionnaires and
periodic post-graduation questionnaires, as well as employment surveys for
all degree recipients. Undergraduates
are required to participate in a capstone course or other senior project.
The Department also plans to track publication of UW-based research
articles produced by its graduate students.
The
Department was reviewed in March 2000 as part of the regular cycle of review
of academic programs. In the
course of that review, the Department called upon information gleaned from
its assessment activities, citing the utility of student surveys in regard
to changing the curriculum. (For
example, the value AOS students place upon the facultyÌs efforts to
develop web-based courses and to use state-of-the-art visualization
technology to enhance learning is likely to affect curricular decisions.)
In addition to this information, the Self- Study included employment
surveys for both undergraduate and graduate degree recipients. The review committee found this information to be a useful
addition to the process.
Biocore Curriculum
Biocore conducted three assessment activities during the
1999-2000 academic year:
1. The director held small and large
group discussions with Biocore 333 students in May as they were about to end
their 4th and final semester of Biocore.
At this same time, each student filled out an anonymous individual
questionnaire about his/her Biocore experience.
2.
Kathleen Paris from the Office of Quality Improvement conducted two
focus groups in February with students beginning their second semester of
Biocore.
3.
Each course had at least one course evaluation completed by students.
Some courses had several.
The program shares the information gained from these
activities with the appropriate course team, which may then take action if
needed. For example:
Ö
The exit questionnaires and discussion indicated that
fourth semester students were very satisfied with their Biocore experience.
Ö
The focus groups were held because many of the first
semester Biocore students were not happy with their experience.
Many students did not know what Biocore is and had signed up because
someone had told them they should. As
a result of learning this, the program sent a letter to the students
admitted for Fall 2000 telling them about Biocore's goals and expectations.
Ö
As a result of feedback from the course evaluations, the
pace of the neurophysiology unit in Biocore 323 is being slowed and are
providing more instruction and practice in writing scientific papers in
Biocore 302 and 304.
Although the program would like to be able to try
different teaching strategies and see how these affect long-term learning,
the difficulty of measuring long-term learning may be a barrier to this
goal. Many of the measures used
at this stage rely on student opinion; since the value of these strategies
is not obvious to students until much later, such measures may not work
well.
Discussion groups and evaluations (items 1 and 3, above)
will continue.
Chemistry
Undergraduate
Program
For
the past several years, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee of the
Department of Chemistry has been engaged in a thorough assessment of the
Chemistry major. In 1998, the
faculty was surveyed about the strengths and weaknesses of the program.
In 1999, assessment from the student perspective was pursued via two
surveys of the junior and senior chemistry majors. One survey was on the
educational background and experiences of the chemistry majors; the other
was a test of basic chemical knowledge in the four general areas of
chemistry. In addition, a small
number of majors participated in a guided interview, and GPA information was
collected for the entire cohort of junior and senior chemistry majors. The
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee is, as a result of its inquiries,
Ïrethinking the undergraduate chemistry curriculumÓ the better to
Ïincrease flexibility of the chemistry major, provide more opportunities
for variation in advanced course work, emphasize the application of
chemistry to real world problems, and encourage undergraduate research
participation.
Communication Arts
The undergraduate assessment plan was initiated in
1998-99. It consisted of five
separate assessment mechanisms:
Ö
a survey of graduating seniors;
Ö
continuing evaluation of timely progress through the
major;
Ö
an alumni newsletter through which the Department may ask
alums about the value of their UW Comm Arts education;
Ö
committee assessment of graded work from a sampling of
Comm Arts classes; and
Ö
collection of letters of evaluation from outside
supervisors of our studentsÌ internships.
Results were generally very positive.
Two problem areas turned up: 1) the lack of space in video and film
production classes, combined with aging equipment; and 2) widespread
difficulty in getting into Comm Arts classes in any kind of meaningful
sequence, due to over-enrollment problems. (A shrinking faculty FTE combined with steadily increasing
demand for the major, particularly in the Radio/TV/Film concentration, has
strained the department.) The
former problem has been addressed to some extent by applying for grants to
purchase new equipment and initiating new production classes, which has led
to increased satisfaction for the production students. Solutions
to the latter problem (creating larger classes at the introductory level to
accommodate student demand, and initiating a more stringent requirement for
admittance into the major) have not had the hoped-for effect.
Indeed, the over-enrollment problem may have worsened, since
enlarging lower level classes has increased the applicants for the major,
with a large increase in attempted enrollment in upper division classes.
This problem is not likely to be solved in the coming year, despite some
advances in hiring.
All aspects of the departmentÌs assessment efforts will
continue this year, with particular attention paid to tracking progress
through the major, since this affects the ability of students to graduate on
time, a major student concern. The
information gathered in the assessment process has helped identify problems
with over-enrollment, and it expects to use the data to exert more control
over the number of Comm Arts majors and help them progress through the
program.
Graduate assessment in Communication Arts is done through
a combination of actions by the DepartmentÌs Graduate Committee and by the
individual areas of study in Media and Cultural Studies, Film Studies,
Communication Science, and Rhetoric. The
first three areas now run graduate (MA/Ph.D.) programs; the last (Rhetoric)
has suspended admissions to the graduate program due to a shortage of
faculty. Departmental governance allows individual areas considerable
autonomy in designing graduate curricula and evaluating graduate candidates.
The Graduate CommitteeÌs membership has representation of each
area, and that committee provides oversight and coordination among the three
degree-granting programs, assuring consistent standards across the
Department. Changes in a
particular graduate curriculum, for example, must be proposed by the faculty
members within a particular area and ratified by the Graduate Committee.
Individual advisors and their immediate colleagues in an area assume
most of the responsibility for the day-to-day tracking of degree progress
among active candidates as well as tracking the post-graduate careers of our
Ph.D.Ìs. The Graduate Committee intervenes at regular intervals for
across-the-board assessments.
The degree progress of candidates is part of an on-going
assessment. Individual area
faculties see to the matter on a daily basis.
Each degree candidate has a major professor and three-person
committee who oversee the candidateÌs graduate curriculum, minor track,
and graduate exams. The Graduate Committee performs an annual
across-the-board review of degree progress in the course of its annual
administrative duties. The
Graduate Committee surveys the degree progress and performance of graduate
students during annual reviews of TA assignments and when reviewing the
entire graduate population for possible awards.
Graduate students are asked to keep a current curriculum
vita and well as an updated transcript on file with the Department for
use in these reviews. Problems
in degree progress (e.g., incompletes) affect decisions about TA assignments
and awards, and the CommitteeÌs concerns can be communicated back to the
appropriate area faculties. The
Committee also tracks the progress of dissertators.
The Graduate Director, for example, writes letters to those
dissertators who are approaching their fifth year after prelims.
The individual area faculties successfully track the
career development of recently matriculated Ph.D.Ìs. In almost all cases, they can assess the job market for
Ph.D.Ìs within a particular discipline, as well as that areaÌs placement
success. The Graduate Committee
will periodically augment that tracking with across-the-board surveys of job
placement and career development. The
DepartmentÌs Graduate Secretary has recently completed a placement survey
of Communication Arts students who received Ph.D.Ìs within the last two
years (1998-2000). The results
show an excellent placement record. The
three programs granted approximately twenty-six Ph.D.Ìs in that two-year
period. Of those, nineteen are
teaching in their disciplines in American colleges or universities; four
foreign-born students are teaching in colleges in their native lands; two
are working outside the teaching profession (current career information was
not available for the last graduate). During
the current academic year, the Department hopes to conduct a more elaborate
survey of graduate students who matriculated over the last decade.
The most recent evaluation of the Comm Arts graduate
programs suggests that two actions may be appropriate in the immediate
future:
1.
Increase the size of the graduate programs by admitting more
qualified students. Currently,
only a small percentage of graduate applicants are admitted, and many
qualified candidates are turned down. Meanwhile,
recruitment rates have dropped somewhat over the last three years.
Recent financial support and placement records suggests that the
Department could readily admit more candidates into the three degree
programs, and may be ready to admit MA candidates into the Rhetoric program.
However, the Department, overwhelmed by undergraduate majors, finds that
graduate students must compete unfavorably for faculty time and attention in
a teaching regime involving such a huge undergraduate population.
2.
Review graduate curricula and testing areas: The Graduate Committee
will ask the three areas to review their individual graduate tracks and
examination procedures for possible curricular reform.
This review is not occasioned by concerns over the success of the
three programsÒas noted above, the placement record remains
excellentÒbut because of turnover in the faculty roster.
ment hires have recently been made in one area and are
anticipated in two others. The
areas may want to revise curricula to accommodate the expertise provided by
new faculty.
Computer Sciences
The
original assessment plan for the Department of Computer Sciences called for
the analysis of individual course evaluations, surveys of recent graduates
and of campus recruiters (potential employers), and comparison to peer
departments. The Chair reports
that the Department is currently reevaluating this plan.
East Asian Languages and Literature
Since this Department initially committed itself to a
fairly wide range of assessment activities--covering both the
language-linguistics program as well as literature-culture programs on both
the undergraduate and graduate levels--it has not made any further attempts
at assessment other than those described in its initial proposal.
A key feature of that proposal is the exit interview.
Exit interviews have always elicited problems that the Department
would like to address, although these have to do with matters over which it
lacks complete control. The
need for more opportunities to study at Japanese universities is often
mentioned, along with complaints that faculty sometimes puts too much
pressure on undergraduate majors to get them to spend a year or more in
Japan, Taiwan, or the PRC. More
in-depth advising for people aspiring to careers in America where they can
use their Chinese or Japanese is also a common theme.
Overall, the Department reports that there seems to be
general satisfaction with the curriculum and other aspects of the program
over which the Department can exercise fuller control.
Economics
Historically, the Department of Economics has focused its
assessment of the undergraduate program on two factors: (1) the breadth of
course offerings and (2) the demand for classes. In both areas, the Department finds it is doing quite well.
In response to student and alumni input, advanced
undergraduate course offerings have been expanded. During the past year, the Department approved two new
advanced courses that deal with important and growing areas of economic
science:
Ö
A course in law and economics, Econ 522, explores
developments in economic theory that now shape the way legal scholars treat
issues such as contracts, antitrust, and environmental regulation.
The course provides excellent training in applied theory, and it
should be quite useful for students who plan to pursue careers that directly
involve economic analysis. In addition, students who are planning to pursue
careers in law should find this course of particular interest.
Ö
An advanced course in the economics of growth, Econ 475,
introduces students to modern developments in economic analyses of growth
and development. Given the
level of student interest in topics related to globalization, Econ 475 is an
important addition to the departmentÌs course listings.
The number of economics majors continues to grow.
Undergraduate degree recipients have grown each of the past three years,
with a 1999-2000 total of 175 degrees conferred (only 136 were conferred in
1996-97).
The graduate program is assessed by looking at the
placements of Ph.D. students and the quality of their dissertations.
Placement success has been noteworthy in the last two years.
Of twenty-nine graduate students seeking PhD level jobs, only one
encountered serious problems finding a job, while a number of others found
excellent placements. In the
spring of 1999, three placements were outstanding, as three graduates
accepted offers from Boston University, Northwestern University and Duke,
turning down equally impressive placements at Stanford, the University of
Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania.
In the spring of 2000, graduates accepted positions at Penn State and
UC-SD, which has a highly ranked economics department.
Over the 1990s, the graduate program in economics became
smaller. To some extent, this trend reflects the departmentÌs success in
encouraging students to finish their dissertations in a timely manner, thus
reducing the number of students in their sixth year or beyond who are still
in the program.
German
In 1998 an extensive assessment of the undergraduate
major (using a University Assessment Council grant) led to a substantial
restructuring of the program, as well as to improvements in the
inner-departmental advising for undergraduates. The Department of German now has a total of seven
undergraduate advisors, plus one departmental L&S Advising Center
Representative, so that more than 40 % of departmental faculty are actively
involved in undergraduate advising. These changes have only been in effect
for one year. The Department
plans to continue to monitor enrolments and student evaluations and will
assess the usefulness of the changes over the next two years as new majors
make their way through the revised program - no additional significant
changes are planned at the present time.
All graduating German majors are asked to fill out a
detailed questionnaire that is evaluated by the Undergraduate Program
Committee. The most recent of these revealed a high level of satisfaction
with the program. Although students offer comments and suggestions regarding
a variety of aspects of the program, no pronounced "clusters" of
comments appear to point to weaknesses that require adjustments in the
undergraduate program.
On the Graduate level, in Fall 1999 the Department
implemented oral and written proficiency assessment of all incoming (M.A.
and post-M.A.) graduate students. Each
student completed a writing sample and an oral proficiency interview; a
faculty committee consisting of the M.A. advisor, the TA supervisor and two
faculty teaching M.A. level courses evaluated the assessment samples, and
each student was advised individually of the results, with recommendations
and strategies for improvement where necessary. In response to a "town
meeting" conducted in Spring 1999 by the German and Dutch Graduate
Student Association (GDGSA), the Department Graduate Program Committee began
a review of the MA degree requirements.
Some internal changes (course rotation, frequency, and sequencing)
were undertaken to loosen up what was perceived as the rigidity of the M.A.
requirements. The Committee
will continue this year by studying the Ph.D. requirements, but this will
probably be a two-year process, including input from GDGSA representatives.
Finally, the Department website the sections on curriculum and degree
requirements for the graduate program was completely redesigned. In the
coming year, the printed version of the graduate booklet and policies will
also be revised extensively and updated.
History of Science
The
Chair reports that the Department is considering altering its assessment
plan. The current plan calls
for the Department to survey recent graduates during the summer after
graduation; implementation of this has proven difficult, so it has been
suggested that the survey be conducted as an exit survey prior to
graduation. The Department will be consulting with university and
college-level assessment staff.
International Studies (formerly International Relations)
This
interdisciplinary programÌs 1996 assessment plan called upon four
instruments to assess the health of the program: a general survey of
undergraduate majors, the assessment of advising, a review of academic
actions and course offerings, and a review of international relations
programs or other interdisciplinary programs at peer institutions.
Of these elements, the undergraduate surveys, review of academic
actions and peer comparison study had been performed by 1998 (as reported in
the 1998 L&S Assessment Report), at which time the program engaged in an
extensive self-study as part of the CollegeÌs regular review of academic
programs. This effort, as
informed by the results of the student assessment efforts and combined with
advice of the review committee, the L&S Academic Planning Council, and
an ad hoc advisory committee, eventually led to a revision of the
undergraduate ÏtracksÓ within the program. In addition, this process of
re-envisioning of the Department warranted a name change from
ÏInternational RelationsÓ (which suggests a focus on political issues
and diplomacy) to ÏInternational StudiesÓ (which would allow for a
socio-cultural approach to the field).
Linguistics
Last year, the Department of Linguistics initiated
discussion of changes in the undergraduate major, but did not make much
progress. Because of this, the
chair applied for assessment funds to help with the project.
The Department was awarded $6000 in assessment funds, to be used to
assess the undergraduate program major and courses of general interest.
A PA has been hired to help with a number of projects, including:
Ö
Setting up machine-scored course evaluations for the
department. The faculty will
take this opportunity to discuss the content of the current forms and
consider changes in the forms and questions.
Ö
Peer comparisons, including descriptions of majors
offered by other linguistics departments.
For example, the Department offers two introductory classes, one of
which is intended for majors and graduate students. Students who take the general class and later decide to major
in Linguistics find a great deal of overlap in the class for majors.
The PA is looking at large courses offered by other linguistics
departments to examine ways to change the general introduction to retain its
popularity without creating overlap with the introduction for majors.
Peer information is also useful when considering courses of general
interest that might be offered, to help the Department better serve the
wider University undergraduate community.
The Department plans to meet with representatives from
Testing & Evaluation Services to discuss assessment and assessment
methods, including ideas surveys of graduating majors, or alumni.
Mathematics
This
year, the Department focused on the evaluation of the Math 130-131-132
sequence, which is offered to Math Education students.
The Department was assisted in this effort by the Quantitative
Assessment Project (QAP), which provides a valuable service to instructors
by creating, administering and scoring customized tests for individual
courses to show the extent to which students have the mathematical skills
useful for the course. This
information is communicated to the instructor and to the students, who then
have an understanding of the studentsÌ readiness for the quantitative
demands of the course at the beginning of the semester.
The
Department of Mathematics is also engaged in a multi-year project to assess
its graduate program. Although
every aspect cannot be examined, five aspects of the program have been
singled out for attention:
1.
Analysis of pre-admission data to early graduate study
data;
2.
Student
surveys of UW Math graduate students in the academic years 1998-99 and
1999-2000;
3.
A
survey of jobs obtained by Math graduate students;
4.
Interviews
with recent graduates; and
5.
Assessment
of introductory graduate courses.
The
Department also plans to consider carefully the 54-credit requirement for
dissertators.
Of
the five areas indicated above, the Department reports that it has completed
the first three. It is
currently engaged in the latter two and in studying the dissertator credit
requirement.
Philosophy
In 1997 the Philosophy Department drew up plans for
evaluation of our undergraduate program. The Department decided to use three
methods. First, responses to
specific assignments in its central required courses (Logic (211), Ancient
Philosophy (430), and Modern Philosophy (432) are to be analyzed by the
instructors of these courses, who are to write reports. Second, the
undergraduate planning committee is to review transcripts of the graduating
majors to evaluate whether majors are taking enough courses from a
sufficient variety of areas as well as courses that are sufficiently central
to the subject. Third, questionnaires are to be given to graduating majors to
see how well they think the Department meets its goals.
The first evaluation was carried out in May 1998, and
while the results were generally satisfactory, there was not yet time to
measure the effect of the changes that had been made to the program in
Spring 1997. Originally, the Department had planned to repeat this
evaluation every two years, but decided instead to postpone the evaluation
scheduled for 1999-2000 until this academic year so as to be able to gauge
the full effect of the changes made in Spring 1997. That evaluation will be
conducted in Spring 2001.
Physics
This
Department was recently reviewed as part of the regular review of academic
programs. The review committee
reported that:
ÏThe assessment plan for the Department of Physics
calls for surveys of graduating seniors each year and alumni every 5 years.
The plan also calls for assessment by the Department faculty,
especially through departmental committees dealing with undergraduate
education. The plan is being implemented this year, so it is too early
to realize the benefit of the assessment process.
However, the detailed surveys of students and alumni carried out by
the Department for its self-study bodes well for this process.Ó
Psychology
In 1997 the Psychology Department completed a major
survey of both current undergraduate students and recent graduates.
This survey is in addition to the end-of-semester student assessments
obtained for each course. Based
on the results of the survey, the Department has been working to address
several concerns, the result of which has been a major overhaul of several
aspects of the program. Four of
these changes are described below.
The Department also received a small grant to implement a
web-based, continuing assessment instrument.
Unfortunately, the difficulty in locating a skilled programmer who
could construct an instrument within the project budget has meant that this
project has not gone forward. At
this time, the Psychology Department's webmaster has developed the
appropriate skills; therefore, if the grant funds are made available again,
the Department will again be able to take up this project.
Major changes
resulting from undergraduate student assessment
1.
Enhancing effectiveness of teaching, particularly by
part-time lecturers. Because
of the large number of majors in Psychology, the relatively small faculty,
and the L&S budgetary requirement that at least 28% of the faculty
support themselves, lecturers perform much of the departmentÌs teaching.
Several steps have been taken to enhance the lecturers' performance.
a.
A committee (which includes faculty experts in the relevant area)
interviews all lecturers before being hired, and that interview includes a
sample lecture.
b.
All new lecturers receive an early-in-the-semester peer assessment
and a mid-semester student assessment.
c.
The Department created a 100-page Undergraduate Instructor's Handbook
to introduce new lecturers and faculty to departmental teaching
requirements, traditions, University requirements (e.g., for Communication-B
courses), and hints about effective teaching strategies.
d.
The Department voted to hire a coordinator for one of its most
important and difficult courses, Psychology 225 (a Communication-B course).
A national search is being conducted to fill this position.
2.
Restructuring the curriculum. The Department adopted a completely overhauled
curriculum that will come into effect in the Fall of 2001.
This new curriculum changes entry requirements, distributional
requirements, and for the first time offers students the opportunity to
count independent study courses toward fulfilling degree requirements.
3.
Classroom modernization. The Department has completed, or is in the process of
completing, a significant number of modernization projects.
4. Unfortunately,
the Department has not been able to implement one change that students
deemed essential: to enhance undergraduate advising.
In light of projected majors and prospective majors, the Department's
Undergraduate Committee will be examining ways to improve this situation.
Graduate
Program
Base on a departmental retreat in Fall, 1997, Psychology
developed and recently implemented an individualized graduate major in
Psychology (IGM). The IGM
is for graduate students whose research interests do not fit neatly into one
of the five area groups (Biological, clinical, Cognition and Perception,
Developmental, and Social/Personality).
Over the next three years, the Department will assess the success of
the IGM.
Religious Studies (proposed major)
The proposed major in Religious Studies includes
assessment of student learning as an essential program component.
The program proposes to assess the degree to which it is
accomplishing its academic objects in at least three ways:
1.
Course evaluations by students: As mandated by the
Program's Legislative Code, all instructors must conduct a course evaluation
every semester. Such evaluations provide detailed data concerning
instructors' performanceÛand hence the degree to which students believe
they have been satisfactorily informed about religious traditions and
approaches to the study of religion.
2.
Student exit surveys: Each semester, graduating seniors
will be asked to respond to a survey about their experience within the
major. The short answers will indicate how students feel the Program
achieved each of its five stated objectives, and the written comments will
spotlight strengths, reveal weaknesses, and suggest improvements.
3.
Faculty evaluation of student achievement: Every
Religious Studies major must take the seminar, a capstone course
prerequisite for the individual research essay. Enrollment is limited to
fifteen, and students must write at least one substantial paper. Every
semester the Program will collect a copy of each student's essay. A random
sample of the papers will be distributed to the Steering Committee, with one
going to every two members (the Director will be included if necessary to
make an even number of members). Each two-person ÏteamÓ will review
these essays to determine how well they assess scholarly literature on
religion, develop cogent arguments based on research into the assigned paper
topics, and present their conclusions clearly.
Once all the papers have been ranked, the Steering Committee shall
discuss the results and take appropriate action.
This proposed major has been approved at the campus level
and will be brought before the Board of Regents in December 2000.
Scandinavian Studies
The procedures outlined in the last assessment report are
still being implemented with satisfactory results. Exit interviews and
teaching evaluations indicate that the students learn their Nordic language
to the satisfaction of the faculty. Their
proficiency in English composition is better than adequate.
Furthermore, the teaching of CommB courses has had an impact on
TA-training: the departmentÌs TAs are, to a higher degree than ever
before, becoming effective writing instructors. As a result, it is the
Department's intention that all of its TAs shall serve as CommB TAs,
preferably at least for a year.
Faculty are not as available to teach graduate seminars
as they and students would like them to be.
The Department hopes that this situation may gradually be alleviated
by the introduction of a few distance learning courses which (it is hoped)
will free faculty time to devote more energy to graduate instruction.
Overall, the assessment process has served to pinpoint a
few problems:
1.
Undergraduate majors who take the "fourth-year"
language course (401) fall roughly into two categories: students who have
completed six semesters of language training at UW and students who are
returning from a year abroad. Those
two groups tend to demand two levels of instruction that satisfy neither
group. The assessment process
has not suggested any easy solution to this problem. The faculty will discuss solutions in the coming year.
2.
The distance learning course "The Tales of Hans
Christian Andersen" employs three "virtual TAs" whose major
contact with students occurs via e-mail.
While no major problems have surfaced, the Department needs to
develop satisfactory ways of evaluating the work of those TAs.
School of Library and Information Sciences
The School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) is a
graduate professional program offering master's, specialist, and doctoral
degrees. It also has a large
Continuing Education Program.
1.
SLIS 's assessment activities are determined by the
nature of the program. As a graduate professional program, its most
significant outcomes assessment always relates to the degree of success
students achieve in finding employment.
A second major assessment pertains to the accreditation of the
master's program by the Committee on Accreditation of the American Library
Association (ALA).
a.
During the past year, the School prepared for the regularly scheduled
ALA review and site visit, gathering facts and figures on all aspects of the
master's program. Among the most significant activities was a survey of all
graduates of the program from 1993-1998.
In addition, employers and current students were surveyed. Faculty
interacted with internship supervisors and the SchoolÌs advisory council.
Finally, the instrument used as a student evaluation of teaching was
modified and used for the first time.
b.
All SLIS committees use findings from these various assessments to
guide their work during the year.
c.
Information gained from the assessment activities will be used to
revise the curriculum, beginning with the foundation courses required of all
students. Student orientation
has been modified to include elements students and alumni deemed important;
advising and placement services have received similar attention. In
addition, the School is striving to reinvigorate the laboratory aspects of
its laboratory library, which have suffered from the reduction in faculty,
because the assessment information revealed it is a valued aspect of recent
graduates' educational experience.
d.
The biggest challenge in implementing assessment plans is finding the
resources to make changes based on the findings.
2.
Following the visit of the ALA accreditation team, the
School anticipates acting on their recommendations and following up on its
own findings. In addition to
the assessment activities that are currently carried out, the School will be
testing portfolio assessment--currently used in several individual
classes--for the entire two-year program, culminating in a
"capstone" experience of some kind.
School of Social Work
In
1999-2000, the School of Social Work received funds from the University
Assessment Council to conduct a large-scale assessment of the school, which
is one component of an overall strategic plan initiated in an effort to
align the schoolÌs programs and internal processes with its changing
resource base. This
project is aimed at positioning the school to prepare the design and
materials necessary to implement a Multidimensional Longitudinal Program
Outcome Study to examine the effectiveness of its professional program.
Since the school has successfully implemented process evaluations for
accreditation documents over the years, the focus of this project is on
performing a formal summative outcome study.
Thus, the study begins with an extensive review of literature, the
development of instruments to be used in the study, and work with the
curriculum committee to re-conceptualize and re-design the professional
program. This work was
undertaken in the 1999-2000 academic year and will continue into the next
academic year. When this foundation is completed, the study itself will be
performed. The study will use a
true control group vs. experimental group and Ïpre-test/post-testÓ
design to evaluate the efficacy of a set of core concentration courses.
(The full progress report is appended to this summary document.)
Slavic Languages
The
Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures has implemented a
three-pronged assessment program. The
assessment program focuses separately on undergraduate Russian language
instruction (the foundation of the undergraduate major), undergraduate
instruction in Russian literature, and graduate instruction.
The
assessment program for Russian language instruction consists of several
components that have been implemented according to the departmentÌs
assessment plan. In the spring
semester for the past three years, students in first-, second-, third-, and
fourth-year Russian have taken a battery of language exams specifically
designed for the purposes of assessing the language program:
Ö
All
students in all levels have taken vocabulary tests based on a universal
minimal vocabulary for learners of Russian.
Ö
A
random sampling of students in all levels have participated in oral
proficiency interviews. (The
coordinator of the Russian language program is an ACTFL-Certified OPI tester
and trainer.)
Ö
Students
in second- through fourth-year Russian have taken tests measuring their
grammatical and syntactical competency.
Ö
Students
in fourth-year Russian have submitted samples of their written work for a
portfolio maintained by the Slavic Department
Ö
Students
in fourth-year Russian have completed a survey, answering questions about
their own sense of their Russian-language progress at UW-Madison and their
satisfaction with the Russian major.
Ö
This
year will be the first year that the Department surveys its alumni according
to the planned schedule, at three years post-graduation.
In
addition to the use of the assessment instruments listed above, the
Department began to administer vocabulary tests in second- through
fourth-year Russian classes as of Semester I, 99-00.
This goal of this test is to measure the degree to which students
lose vocabulary between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of
the fall semester.
The
Department is also pleased to report that it has had considerable
confirmation of the quality of its language program from a variety of
external agencies and institutions. UW-Madison
students of Russian have won prizes for the quality of their writing from
the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) and have taken first
place in the national competition for admission to the study abroad program
sponsored by ACTR. Students
from Madison have been placed in the next sequential level of instruction at
the Russian School at Middlebury College, a national Russian language
program with a reputation for being rigorous.
Finally, the Department is quite proud of the fact that in the last
three years, five students of Russian at UW-Madison have applied for and won
highly competitive federal National Security Education Program grants to
support study abroad in Russia.
The
Department of Slavic Languages has not used this assessment information to
make changes in the major, since it may be too early to propose that changes
be made. The faculty has discussed the annual assessment report in the fall
at faculty meetings and has noted trends that warrant further study.
Of greatest concern is the sense that students in fourth-year Russian
have shown decreased grammatical competence (compared to the performance of
the same students in third-year Russian).
The Department will watch this trend and consider making changes to
the curriculum for fourth-year Russian.
The
Department reports that it has faced no challenges or problems in
implementing its assessment plan, and will begin assessing listening and
reading comprehension by means of computerized tests this year.
All other components of the assessment program will continue to be
implemented as planned.
Sociology
The
Department of Sociology was one of several programs reviewed in 1999-2000.
The departmental self-study reported that its Undergraduate Program
Assessment Committee had developed a statement of two levels of goals for
undergraduate education in Sociology: first, to provide undergraduate
students with Ïeducation for citizenshipÓ and second, to achieve five
more specific goals among students in the major. Progress toward achieving these goals is measured via a
mixture of pre-test and post-test methods (employed in basic
freshman/sophomore courses and in some skills courses), portfolio review and
exit interviews with a randomly selected group of seniors.
The Department has also implemented a web-based survey instrument
that has been a cost-effective and innovative use of technology. Faculty
will also assess the skills and Ïsociological imaginationÓ of this group
of students. Finally, selecting
DARS reports for evaluation of how broadly majors spread their course
selections will assess studentsÌ breadth of knowledge.
Since this is the first year that this plan will be implemented, it
may be too early to comment on progress to date.
The
review committee observed that, for many years, the Department has used
course evaluations to assess individual courses.
The standard course evaluation form used for all courses solicits
responses on a 5-point scale; a different questionnaire also asks for
open-ended comments about the course. Using
a wealth of data provided by the department, the review committee was able
to analyze student responses to consider issues important to the quality of
the undergraduate program. Mindful
that student evaluations are a rather incomplete tool for curricular
assessment, the review committee also interviewed students.
Thus, the academic program review incorporated the assessment of
student learning as an integral component of the evaluation of program
quality.
Spanish and Portuguese
Undergraduate Program
The
Department of Spanish inaugurated its new undergraduate major in Fall 1999.
The rationale for restructuring the major was founded on two issues:
1) A sense among the faculty that the undergraduate curriculum was not as
integrated as it could be; and 2) a survey of majors and non-majors revealed
that the needs of the undergraduate student population had changed.
Among
the requirements for graduating majors is a portfolio containing writing
samples selected from a language practice class, a literature class, and a
culture class. The portfolio
requirement serves as a way to assess writing skillsÛan important
component of the new majorÛduring the majorsÌ course of study and at the
time of graduation. Although
portfolios have been collected from students graduating from the old Spanish
major, a thorough assessment of those portfolios has been deferred because
the current interest is to evaluate the effectiveness of the new program. The Portuguese section of the Department has also begun to
amass a significant number of portfolios from their majors, and will
undertake an assessment of them this year.
The
evaluation of the oral component of the assessment plan will begin this
year. The official ACTFL oral
interview will be given to a significant number of graduating seniors.
The same method will be used to gauge the proficiency of the
Portuguese majors.
The
primary challenge in implementation of the plan to assess the undergraduate
major has been the lack of faculty available for this exercise and the large
number of majors that must be assessed.
The Department hopes that the presence of new faculty will alleviate
the difficulty in undertaking this important activity.
Graduate
Program
One tool for assessing the graduate program is
employment placement data for Ph.D.Ìs.
The Graduate SchoolÌs "Annual Report and Data" supplies
the following figures for the department:
Submitted by Elaine M. Klein, Associate Academic Planner.
5 October, 2000
