Assessment of the Core

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Assessment of the Core Social Inquiry

• Charlyne L. Walker
• Director of Educational Research and Evaluation,
• Arts and Sciences

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Assessing the Major

• SACS requires us to assess all degree programs
  bachelors through doctorate as part of
  Institutional Effectiveness
• FIU has been assessing our degree programs since
  1999-2000
• Recent changes in SACS has moved us toward more
  direct measures
• Departments assess programs in a variety of ways
• Sample IE document

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Social Inquiry Core Category Description

• In these courses students investigate
• social, political, and economic configurations
• cultural and psychological features of human
  life
• gender, race/ethnicity, and social class
• consciousness and identity
• social interactions with the natural environment
  
• and local, national, and global aspects of the
  human world

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Foundations of Social Inquiry

• Description
• Students learn theories and methodologies that
  underlie these areas of study and enhance their
  research and analytic skills.
• Competency
• Students will be able to use research and
  analytic skills to evaluate and apply theories
  and methodologies.

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Societies and Identities

• Description
• Students compare societies and cultures in local,
  national, or international contexts and in
  contemporary or historical perspective.
• Competency
• Students will be able to compare and contrast
  societies and cultures.

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Objectives and Measures

• There should be objectives for the courses in
  course syllabi
• As objectives are developed, we may be asking for
  you to include them into course syllabi
• As measures are developed, you might be asked to
  include them into course syllabi to let students
  know what measures are being used
• This is not a short term solution for the 2010
  SACS visit
• The measures must be on going as part of SACS
  requirements beyond 2010

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Types of Direct Measures

• Embedded questions
• Set of locally developed questions intended to
  measure specific student learning outcomes
• Placed within tests of all sections of the same
  course
• Used to track cognitive or skill development
  through a program, sets of embedded questions,
  with each expecting a higher level of proficiency
  than the previous, may be used across sequential
  courses
• Papers or short answer questions using rubrics
  a rubric is used to standardize the grading of
  work

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Types of Direct Measures

• Locally developed exams - exams produced by
  faculty within a discipline
• Pre/Post Test - a locally developed test that
  measure students incoming and post program
  levels of knowledge, skills, behaviors and
  attitudes to measure students gains
• You can find more types of measures at
  http//oeas.ucf.edu/alc/dir_measures.htm

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Examples of Objectives and Measures from UCF

• SYG 2000 General Sociology - To be able to gather
  and synthesize information from appropriate
  resources, and be able to evaluate information
  and sources for accuracy and credibility.        
         
• Measures       
• 1.1 SYG 2000 General Sociology - Pre/Post Tests.
  During the first 10 days of the semester a
  pretest with questions designed specifically to
  address objective, will be administered to all
  sections of SYG 2000. A posttest will be
  administered two weeks prior to the end of the
  course to gauge acquisition of student knowledge
  of objective.                
• 1.2 SYG 2000 General Sociology - Questions will
  be embedded into the last exam administered in
  each section of SYG2000. Item analysis of these
  questions will be used to gauge the acquisition
  of student knowledge of this outcome.

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Examples of Objectives and Measures from UCF

• POS 2041 American National Government - Students
  will demonstrate effective written communication
  concerning American politics and policy.        
         
• Measures       
• 8.1 POS 2041 American National Government -
  Students will be given an internet learning
  module to complete that requires that they write
  a brief essay. Student writing ability will be
  rated as satisfactory or not satisfactory based
  on identified criteria measuring writing skill.
  100 of the students who pass the course will
  achieve a score of satisfactory.                 
• 8.2 POS 2041 American National Government -
  Students will watch an in depth news program
  (like the News Hour on PBS) and write a brief
  essay in response. Student writing ability will
  be rated as satisfactory or not satisfactory
  based on identified criteria measuring writing
  skill. 100 of the students who pass the course
  will achieve a score of satisfactory.

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Examples

• UCF General Education Social Foundations
• http//iaaweb.ucf.edu/assessment/visitor/view_200
  6_07.asp?program_ID1241
• UCF Assessment Plans for 2006
• http//iaaweb.ucf.edu/assessment/visitor/y67.asp?
  groupvisitor