Spring 2008 by Scott Senjo, Professor, Dept. of CJ

1. Assessment of CJ4200 - Theories of Crime and Delinquency

Bruce Bayley
Spring, 2008

Outcomes Assessed:

• The student will be able to compare and contrast the deontological and teleological theoretical perspectives as they relate to ethics within the three primary elements of the criminal justice system (law enforcement, the courts, and corrections).

Methods of Assessment:

• In-class assignments where students relate the deontological and teleological theoretical perspectives to current events within each element of the criminal justice system.
• Multiple choice test questions that assess each student's comprehension of the basic principles of the deontological and teleological theoretical perspectives.
• A final comprehensive paper where students are expected to pick a particular aspect of either the deontological and teleological perspective and relate it to a current ethical dilemma facing law enforcement, the courts, or corrections.

Results:

Ethical and moral dilemmas have faced the criminal justice system since its inception. As each encounter offers unique and challenging perspectives, students are exposed to a variety of theoretical and political view points. The intent of the course, however, is not to give them a "correct response" for each scenario, but instead, provide the necessary tools so when an ethical dilemma does arise, they will be in a better position to think the problem through. In addition, theoretical  positions are blended with the realities of departmental and system policies and procedures. The intent of this interaction is to highlight and review the sometimes incompatible realities faced by the professionals who work in our criminal justices system.

Implications:

The goal of this course is to

• expose students to theoretical concepts of ethics and morality
• review and discuss the ethical challenges faced by those working within the criminal justice system
• begin the process of critical review when faced with an ethical or moral dilemma

2. Results of our CJ exit survey are as follows:
    By Mrs. Faye Medd

Most students have majored in "Law and Justice, Law Enforcement and Forensic Science Investigation." Most students are employed and about one half of the jobs are criminal justice and the other half are not related to the field. Most of them did not file with the WSU Career Center. Most of our graduates plan to continue their education in a Masters program and/or law school. Others will find jobs working with juveniles, continuing with present employment and federal employment. Some plan to join the military or complete the Police Academy. Most students financed their education with full-time employment through their job, part-time employment, vocational rehabilitation, scholarships, the GI Bill and parents. They listed the most beneficial classes as those related to law, such as Constitutional rights, Arrests, search and seizure, Criminal law, and Laws of evidence. The second most beneficial classes were related to forensic science like Forensic I and II and Crime scene photography.

We asked how the Department could best serve students, they said:

1. Have more online classes and at other campuses
2. Offer more classes in each concentration each semester
3. Have more speakers to give lecture variety
4. Encourage students to visit more with their advisors
5. Do more research in classes to help in grad school
6. Professors should use more visual aids when possible
7. Offer more core classes at night and online; student had to travel to SLCC for class
8. Offer more forensic classes at SLCC
9. Big division between forensics and other concentrations; teach non-forensic students about purpose of forensics
10. Faculty advisors need to be more knowledgeable about Dept. requirements.
11. More professor profiles online to help students choose classes better
12. Break classes into sections instead of broad overview
13. Offer more field experience

Finally, most students appreciated the efforts from the faculty and staff toward completing their educational experience. They noted that we were always willing to help them succeed. Because our faculty has real-world experience, students are better educated based on actual experience, as well as, that learned from a text book.

3. Assessment Report - Spring 2008
    By David R. Lynch

Undergraduate Program

Desired Outcome: Grasp fundamental concepts, nature of criminal law.
How Assessed: A test of fundamental criminal law concepts administered to students taking Dr. Wadman's Spring 2008 senior seminar course. All of these students had taken criminal law as required course earlier in their academic career.
Who Did The Assessment: Dr. David Lynch
Results: The class average on this exam of criminal law fundamentals was a 74. The high was 100 and the low was 40. There was something of a bimodal distribution: students tended to do either extremely well or quite poorly, with sizable cohorts in each group.
Implications: I wish the average could have been higher than a 74, but it had been some time since most of these graduating students took the lower-division course that exposed them to these concepts. Interestingly, the curve was bimodal rather than the standard bell curve. What this suggests is that a big segment of WSU criminal justice grads are doing a very good job at learning and retaining key criminal law concepts while a big segment is not doing well at retaining what they had learned. I am confident that all students were initially exposed to these concepts at one time so I think it could be a retention problem more than a learning problem. Students might benefit from a more extensive repetition of key, critical concepts during the lower-division course. That could help not only learning but perhaps retention.

Graduate Program

Desired Outcome: A comprehension of fundamental legal concepts of the criminal justice system and exposure to reading original legal cases.
How Assessed: A series of ten pop quizzes given during the master's degree course, "Legal Foundations of Criminal Justice." These quizzes were designed to test knowledge of broad areas covered in the course and readings.
Results: The students performed very well by scoring a combined average of 93.4% on the quizzes. The lowest performing student scored an average of 86% and the highest scoring student obtained an average of 97.5%. These quizzes were based on assigned readings of appellate court decisions found in a law casebook entitled, "Leading Constitutional Cases on Criminal Justice."
Implications: These nights, graduate students were motivated to learn. I often saw them in groups before class discussing the assigned readings. It seems from my pop quizzes that they really understood what it was that they were expected to learn. I was very impressed by this group of students. I will have to see if future classes do this well (this was the first time I taught this course). It should be noted that this was a small course of just six students.

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