Final Assessment Report for the 1997-99 Cycle

Department: Psychology

Assessment Coordinator: Linda Reinhardt, UW-Rock County

1) Course Information:

Course Title and Number:

PSY 360, Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence

Credits: 3

Total number of instructors teaching the course: ~12

Total number of sections taught: ~15

Number of sections assessed: 4 in 1998-99

Number of faculty/academic staff assessing this course:

97-98: 0 faculty 0 academic staff

98-99: 4 faculty 0 academic staff

Total number of students participating in the assessment:

97-99: 0 98-99: 97

  1. Breadth of knowledge outcomes:

1) Understand the quasi-experimental research designs used by developmental psychologists (e.g., cross-sectional, longitudinal, sequential).

2) Understand the major theories of development, including theories of social, cognitive, and language development.

3) Understand the nature/nurture controversy and how it applies to different types of development

Assessment methods for breadth of knowledge outcomes:

1997-98

The department did not assess this course during Spring, 1998 because few sections of this course were offered during that semester.

1998-99

Department members decided to use a standard set of nine multiple choice questions they would administer at the end of the course (see item analysis attachment).

Results:

The average accuracy of students on the multiple choice items that assess the breadth of knowledge outcomes were:
  1. Understand the quasi-experimental research designs used by developmental psychologists (e.g., cross-sectional, longitudinal, sequential): 86%
  2. Understand the major theories of development, including theories of social, cognitive, and language development: 66%

3) Understand the nature/nurture controversy and how it applies to different types of development: 89%

  1. Proficiency outcomes:

Institutional proficiencies assigned:
Clear and logical thinking:
1) Analyze, synthesize, evaluate and interpret information and ideas.
2) Distinguish knowledge, values, beliefs, and opinions.
3) Evaluate situations of social responsibility.


Effective communication:
4) Read and listen with comprehension and critical perception.
5) Develop a large and varied vocabulary.

Assessment methods for proficiency outcomes:

1997-98

The department did not assess this course during Spring, 1998 because few sections of this course were offered during that semester.

1998-99

The set of multiple choice items the department members used covered three of the five proficiency outcomes (1, 4, and 5). There were no items that explicitly addressed proficiency outcomes 2 and 3.

Results:

The average number of students who answered each item correctly was 78%

4) Department specific proficiency outcomes (if any): None

5) Changes enacted during the 1997-99 assessment cycle to improve student learning:

The following are some of the changes that department members have made to improve student learning of psychology:

  1. Made a concerted effort to formalize assessment of all of the breadth of knowledge and proficiency outcomes that the department has identified for Introductory Psychology. The department decided to use a standard set of assessment items in the second year of the cycle.
  2. Shared with department colleagues proven and/or promising exercises and supplemental instructional materials.
  3. Developed and shared additional classroom exercises and examples that specifically target those content areas and proficiencies where are students appear to be having difficulty.
  1. Evidence of changes in student learning based on improvements:

    2. No department members assessed this course in 1997-98 so there is no grounds for comparison from the first to the second year of this cycle.

  2. Further changes to be made to improve student learning based on 1998-99 data:

The department has not yet had an opportunity to review the result of the 1998-99 data as the data was not assembled until the end of the 1999 academic year. However, at our Fall 1999 meeting, we will discuss the assessment results and how to use them to improve student learning.

Among the topics we will discuss will be:

a) How to create better measures of our students’ breadth of knowledge and proficiency outcomes. Although we believe it was wise to move toward a standard set of assessment items, we are not satisfied that they measure students’ knowledge and proficiencies very well. We feel we need to put particular emphasis on assessing proficiencies. At the present the department has no assessment items that tap into proficiency outcomes 2 and 3.

b) How to conduct frequent informal classroom assessments (formative evaluation) prior to examinations (summative evaluation), so instructors can adjust their teaching to meet student needs, and provide students with feedback from the assessments that can help them develop during the course of the semester.

c) How to take better advantage of instructional technology (e.g., e-mail, electronic forums, Web pages) for the opportunities it provides to do some of the assessment and presentation of supplemental instruction and materials outside of the classroom.

 

8) Additional contributions to assessment such as publications, presentations, qualitative classroom innovations, other items relating to assessment that the department wishes to note: None