The Department’s General Studies assessment plan called for Blauwkamp’s PSCI 170 sections from Spring 2005 to be used to pilot the assessment plan. The General Studies course objectives and the specific indicators chosen to assess those objectives are provided below. The results indicate that the typical student in these sections (N = 24) performed in the A/A- range for each objective. The improvement to the typical student’s paper through the revision process was modest (7.5%), but that may be a result of the median grade for the initial draft version of the paper being an A.
OBJECTIVE
|
INDICATOR |
Median score
(out of 100) |
| Locate/gather information |
Microtheme reporting US economic statistics
|
90 |
| Critical thinking/analysis |
Microtheme making argument
|
87 |
| Cultural diversity |
Microtheme on affirmative action
|
88.5 |
| Normative foundations |
Exam on ideas of key theorists: Locke, Marx, etc.
|
92 |
| Empirical phenomena |
Microtheme on US voter turnout trends
|
87 |
| Reason about issues/policy |
Microtheme on Lawrence v. Texas ruling
|
87 |
OBJECTIVE
|
INDICATOR |
% improvement
in grade |
| Effective communication |
Microtheme revision - part of WI designation |
7.5% |
The GS assessment plan also calls for instructors, at their option, to collect and report data on students’ perceptions of their performance on one or more objectives. A survey instrument for collecting data on student perceptions of performance was constructed for that purpose and administered to the students in Blauwkamp’s PSCI 170 sections from Spring 2005 to pre-test the survey instrument. The survey results (median scores) are provided below (see table next page). The survey results reaffirm the results from the student performance indicators above – the typical student expressed a high level of satisfaction with their learning experiences in the course.
Action: The Department considers the pilot test of its General Studies assessment plan to be a success and will proceed to implement the plan by collecting comparable data for all sections of PSCI 170 in Fall 2005 and rotating each semester to the other PSCI GS course offerings.