University of Nebraska Kearney

1. In order to establish a baseline, a writing sample--such as an essay exam, a position paper, or a formalized portion of a student's journal--will be collected from each major and minor in one of the required introductory courses (Introduction to Philosophy or Introduction to Ethics). The Assessment Committee (which will consist of all the members of the philosophy program) will read and evaluate these writing samples each semester, using the Writing Sample Rubric for Assessment. These samples will remain anonymous, using only a number for identification, until after a consensus has been reached by the committee on the rating each sample ought to receive. These samples, along with their ratings, will be filed for comparison with writing samples from later courses.
2. Upon completion of the program, another writing sample--such as an essay exam, a position paper, or a formalized portion of a student's journal--will be collected from each major and minor in one of the program's capstone courses. (For majors, the capstone course is PHIL 490; for minors any 400 level Philosophy course will serve as capstone courses.) The Assessment Committee will read and evaluate these samples, using the same rubric as was used for the introductory level samples, and again maintaining anonymity until an evaluative consensus has been reached.
3. The introductory level samples and the capstone level samples will then be compared to assess the effectiveness of the program as a whole as evidenced by the improvement (or the lack of it) in the writing of these students, viewed as a group.
4. The Philosophy faculty will keep a portfolio for our majors and minors containing samples of their written work as they progress through the Philosophy curriculum. Before graduation, each portfolio will be assessed in terms of the objectives to determine the effectiveness of the program. A steady improvement in meeting the objectives by a majority of these students will be considered a positive assessment of the effectiveness of the program; a failure to see such improvement will be considered a negative assessment of the program. In the case of a negative assessment, all the member of the faculty will meet to discuss and implement whatever changes are needed to improve program effectiveness.

The philosophy faculty will annually review the assessment plan, using the following questions as a rubric:

• What do we want our students or graduates to know, do, or value?
• Are the methods of assessing our students and graduates effective and consistent with what we want them to know, do, or value?
• Are we learning what we want to know about what our students and graduates know, do, or value?

The Philosophy faculty will combine the answers to these questions with the analyzed yearly results of the student assessment and decide on the assessment activities that will be continued; those that will be modified; those that will be discontinued; and those that should be added. These decisions will be included in the Assessment report.