Weber State University   

Sociology

Results of Assessment

1999-2000 (submitted fall 2000)

1. Rewrote the mission of our program:

1. Equip students with a broad view of the world consistent with the goals of a liberal arts education.
2. Provide knowledge and skills, both sociological (theory, research, statistics), and general (analytic, problem solving, writing) for a broad spectrum of jobs in today’s competitive labor market or to pursue professional degrees (in Sociology, Law, Public Administration, etc).
3. Build a stimulating learning environment through close interaction between faculty and students.
4. Develop an appreciation of multi-cultural and comparative perspectives for using and enriching their everyday work and life experience.

2. Identified program outcomes. 

Generally, we continued with the same program outcomes as were identified in 1998-99 (listed below) with a focus of discussion on outcome c, competent writing skills. Faculty discussed the need for a more standardized method of measuring competent writing skills. An additional outcome was created and is represented in outcome letter g below.

1. Possess analytic skills.
2. Possess problem solving skills.
3. Possess competent writing skills.
4. Know terms and research of the discipline of sociology.
5. Know concepts and theories of the discipline of sociology.
6. Possess an informal appreciation of other cultures.
7. Possess skills to be competitive in today’s labor market or to pursue professional degrees.

3. Articulated the outcomes and the curriculum:

See outcome grid for 1998-99.

4. Selected appropriate measures of student learning for our program:

1. Exit interview. We decided to focus on re-working the exit interview again this year to better measure some of the "old" student outcomes above as well as the new. The major changes to the survey included additional measures of outcomes d. and e. listed above as well as a more honed question regarding outcome f. The new outcome is measured in a series of new questions on the exit interview (questions 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13).
2. Writing Rubrics and Student Papers. As mentioned above, the Sociology faculty identified a need for a more standardized measure of competent writing skills. Much of the discussion in the Spring of 2000 revolved around the Writing Rubrics used by the General Education Assessment committee. The faculty did not come to any agreement as to which writing samples should be collected and evaluated (although all student portfolios from the Senior Capstone class were collected and copied but were not analyzed) with the writing rubrics nor did we come to an agreement that the writing rubrics as they currently exist should be the standardized measure of competent writing. Because nothing was agreed upon, this discussion continued over the summer and into the Fall 2000 semester in hopes of using a set of writing rubrics to evaluate student papers for competent writing skills.

5. Collected the data and analyzed it:

The exit interview was mailed to graduating seniors in sociology. Both majors and minors received the survey. Of the 14 majors and 29 minors in Sociology who graduated in Spring 2000, 19 returned exit questionnaires by June 1, for a 44% response rate. The following is a short summary of the results. Generally, the results suggest that the program is upholding its mission and accomplishing the student outcomes satisfactorily.

1. Most students chose sociology as a major or minor primarily in either their sophomore or junior year (78%).
2. 70.6 % of respondents chose the generalist track, rather than an emphasis. 23.5% of respondents chose the criminology and deviance emphasis, while 5.9% chose the family, gender, and work emphasis.
3. Of the students who chose an emphasis area, two-thirds chose it because of personal interest. The other third chose their emphasis area because they thought it would help them with their future job.
4. Students were asked their skill level in writing, analytical thinking, problem solving, statistical skills, computer skills, discipline specific knowledge in theory, concepts, and research, and an appreciation of other cultures, before and after taking upper division sociology course work. Without exception they responded that their skills in these areas had improved.
5. The majority of students rated sociology core courses as high in having them understand sociological research (73.7%), concepts (94.7%), and theories (73.7%).
6. 47.4% of students plan to go to graduate school sometime in the future. 21.1% were undecided at this time.
7. Students were overwhelmingly satisfied with faculty concern about them (100%), and with faculty (94.7%) and staff (100%) assistance and advisement.
8. Camaraderie among students continues to be high, with 73.7% having a feeling of camaraderie.

Faculty discussed these results September 2000 and developed the following plan:

1. Do not create new learning outcomes.

The same seven learning outcomes will be measured again this year so as to allow faculty to concentrate on developing better measures for these outcomes (see #2 below).

2. Improve measurement of already established learning outcomes.

Efforts to improve measurement of learning outcomes will concentrate on the following areas: a) writing rubrics to evaluate competent writing skills; b) revising the exit interview; and c) constructing a test for sociology students to take as a pre- and post-test of learning outcomes.

1. Writing rubrics to evaluate competent writing skills. The faculty have continued our discussion of the especially poor measurement of competent writing skills in previous years of assessment and thus have chosen to continue our discussions revolving around implementation of writing rubrics to evaluate student writing portfolios from the Senior Capstone course collected in Spring 2000, as well as those to be collected in Fall 2000, and Spring 2001.
2. Revising the exit interview. The exit interview will be revised again this year to measure all learning outcomes.
3. Constructing a test for sociology students to take as a pre- and post-test of learning outcomes. Finally, faculty will construct a "test" to measure the student learning outcomes. Students will take this "test" first when they declare sociology as their major and again at the end of the Senior Capstone course. Fall 2000 will be spent constructing the test in hopes of administering a pre-test in Spring 2001.

3. Restructure the Sociology Program.

Given some of the data collected from the exit interviews (see 5.b. above), we have learned that the majority of our students (about 70% of graduating seniors) are not selecting a specific specialty area under which to study sociology. Given this information, the faculty discussed restructuring the Sociology Program so that it does not have areas of emphasis or at least a reduced number of emphasis areas. Discussions of restructuring have already begun and will continue so that students entering Fall 2001 will have different program requirements than the current requirements.

Mission Statement / Student Learning Outcomes / Curriculum Grid / Assessment Plan / Contact Person