Weber State University   

2002-2003 (submitted 09/10/03)

The student learning outcomes that we feel demonstrate the knowledge and capabilities of our graduates to create excellent customer service, sales presentations, sales negotiations, customer profiling, team building and sales ethics were assessed during 2002-03.  A graduate survey was used to get opinions from graduating seniors and associate degree graduates as to their significant skill development during their time at Weber State in the Sales and Service Technology Department.  As in the previous year, the same skill sets were mentioned multiple times:  negotiation skills, presentation skills, personality profiling, team development and customer service.  These skills were identified as most beneficial. 

Four skill areas that we still feel are beneficial were not mentioned.  These areas are:  sales proposal writing, business math, sales ethics, and merchandising and buying skills.  Perhaps these skills are considered less glamorous, not as interesting and more tedious by our graduates.  That may be the reason why they were not mentioned as significant skill areas.  Industry still tells us that our graduates need to be better prepared in these areas. 

During the 2002-03 school year, we made a focused effort to include the business math skills and merchandising/buying skills in the following courses: SST 2383, Retail Merchandising and Buying Methods ,SST 1303, Distribution Principles, SST 3153, Sales Engineering Techniques and SST 3603, Sales Presentation Strategies and Techniques.   We will continue with a concentrated effort to focus on these topics.  As a faculty, we have determined that we need to require the SST 2383 class as a part of the Technical Sales program.  It is a required course in the Sales and Merchandising program. This will help to also give the student the required business math skills. 

In the senior projects class during 2004, the instructor will add projects that will measure student customer service and customer profiling skills as well as their understanding of ethics. We have not yet added a rating system of student performance in senior projects that is to be assessed by the faculty to complement what the instructor has done to evaluate their projects.

During this past year, our faculty, as promised, have evaluated our students’ writing skills.  In our senior seminar class, SST 4992, Desiree Larsen has seen an improvement in their writing skills which manifests itself in more professional cover letters, thank you letters, and resumes.  She did not see as much of an improvement in the online course and is working to develop an exercise that will help these students do better.  In our ethics course, SST 4203 and sales engineering course, SST 3153, the instructors report marked improvement.  In the SST 4102, team development course, the instructor reports that this past year, student reports were more salient, directed and understandable.  We still feel the need to focus more effort in this area.  We are also looking at ways to increase our students’ computer skills.  This will better prepare them to develop more persuasive and professional presentations.

During the coming school year, we will focus on developing a rating system to assess student performance in the senior projects class to complement the projects and assessment already used by the instructor.  We will also involve our advisory committee in the assessment process in a more active and involved manner.

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