Notes / 20 November 2018
Prepared by Zach Whalen, November 20, 2018
In the 2017-18 assessment cycle, the Department of English, Linguistics and Communication focused its assessment activities on two program goals: Goal 1: Literature and Goal 2: Linguistics. This report is a summary of the results gathered through Peer Assessment and Instructor Assessment for each of the Learning Outcomes in each of these two program goals.
Measure:
Peer Assessment
Sucess Criteria:
At least 70% of students should be "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" (3 or 4 rubric scores).
Results:
Met. All together, 74.16% of assessed students (n = 89) produced artifacts that are meeting or exceeding expectations.
Analysis:
A healthy majority of our students overall are meeting or exceeding expectations with regard to this SLO. When it was last assessed in the 2015-16, a very similar number of students performed very similarly (74.47% in 2016, n = 94 vs 74.16% in 2018, n = 89). The average rubric score was also very similar.
The only anomaly appears when separating these scores into two cohorts: students in ENGL 295 vs students in Senior Seminars. One would expect an improvement between these two cohorts, and indeed this has been the case historically. For example, in 2015-16, the passing rate improved by 7.54% between the two cohorts. In 2017-18, however, that rate actually dropped by 1.9%.
This may be because the sample size of that Senior Seminar cohort is somewhat smaller in 2018, and it could also be influenced by the fact that one of the seminars included in these results, ENGL 451, included a large number of non-English majors. As such, these students would understandably have had less preparation and training in "Working closely with the language of the text".
The passing rate for these seminars (72.73%) is still above the threshold, so no major intervention is necessary.
Measure:
Peer Assessment
Sucess Criteria:
At least 70% of students should be "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" (3 or 4 rubric scores).
Results:
Met. 76.6% (n = 89) of students sampled are meeting or exceeding expectations with regard to this SLO.
Analysis:
The majority of students are meeting or exceeding expectations with regard to this SLO, with 76.6% (n = 89) scoring a 3 or 4 on our rubric. This is on par with the results of the last time this SLO was assessed in 2015-16 where the passing rate was 76.4% (n = 94). The average score is also very similar.
The only anomaly, like with SLO 1A, is that the passing rate dropped off between the ENGL 295 cohort and the Senior Seminar cohort. Historically, there has been a statistically significant improvement between these two groups, which makes sense as these are students progressing through our curriculum, but in this assessment year, we actually found a drop off: 77.27% (n = 66) for ENGL 295 versus 72.73 (n = 23) for Senior Seminars.
This discrepancy may be a result of some differences in the Senior Seminars offered this year, but overall, since the passing rates are all still above 70%, and since the passing rates for ENGL 295 actually improved slightly, no major intervention is necessary.
Measure:
Instructor Assessment
Sucess Criteria:
At least 70% of students should be "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" (3 or 4 rubric scores).
Results:
Met. 80.5% of sampled students (n = 202) are meeting or exceeding expectations in this SLO.
Analysis:
With an average rubric score of 3.14, a strong majority of sampled students (80.5%, n = 202) are meeting or exceeding expectations with regard to this SLO. This is a significant improvement (around 10%) over the last time this outcome was assessed.
Measure:
Peer Assessment
Sucess Criteria:
At least 70% of students should be "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" (3 or 4 rubric scores).
Results:
No data.
Analysis:
We were scheduled to assess this outcome with the Peer Assessment method during this cycle, but a relatively smaller number of available samples made this impractical.
Measure:
Instructor Assessment
Sucess Criteria:
At least 70% of students should be "Meeting or Exceeding Expectations" (3 or 4 rubric scores).
Results:
Met. 80.95% of sampled students (n = 42) are meeting or exceeding expectations with respect to this rubric.
Analysis
With an average score of 3.19%, a significant majority of students in Linguistics courses are meeting or exceeding expectations when it comes to "Demonstrating awareness of relevant linguistic paradigms, theories, models, or frameworks."