University of Nebraska Kearney

General Studies Program Comprehensive Assessment Report Academic Year 2003-2004: Psychology Department Assessment

For the Social and Behavioral Sciences category of the General Studies Program, students will:

1. demonstrate an understanding of human experiences and be able to relate them to the present,
2. demonstrate an ability to understand the application of the empirical research methods used in social sciences to understand individual behavior as well as the interrelationships among people,
3. demonstrate the ability to comprehend how social scientific concepts originate, are validated and refined within a variety of social science disciplines, and
4. demonstrate the ability to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the social sciences and the explanations they offer for contemporary life.

The Department of Psychology used the ACAT (Area Concentration Achievement Test) a nationally standardized test (published by PACAT, Inc.) to assess two undergraduate introductory psychology sections. The ACAT--pretest is designed for Psychology majors, i.e., taken toward the beginning of the Psychology Major, to assess their initial knowledge of the various subfields of Psychology. It examines four content areas relating to some of the material that was covered in Introductory Psychology. Fifty of the ACAT tests were scored by PACAT in order to provide normed comparisons, but the remaining students in classes were administered copies of the exam to provide data from all of the students. Which tests were normed was determined randomly. The additional tests administered to remainder of the classes were reviewed by the instructors and a number of Psychology faculty, who discovered that the test seemed inappropriate for assessing General Psychology. Indeed, some of the questions were difficult to answer by faculty members with access to textbooks. Before the test was sent off for scoring, concerns were raised.

The summaries of the scoring are provided below:

One instructor chose 4 sub-areas of Psychology for the tests, Developmental Psychology, Human Learning and Cognition. Personality, and Sensation and Perception. The other instructor selected the same categories except Physiological Psychology was substituted for Personality.