SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2011 - 2012 : Educational Programs :
Kinesiology MA
Kinesiology MA
2 Goals 2 Objectives 2 Indicators 2 Criteria 2 Findings 2 Actions
| GOAL: Research Skills |
| Objective |
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| MA Kinesiology students will be able to format references in scholarly works in the correct APA format. |
| Indicator |
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A rubric developed by the program faculty will be used to assess students' research skills regarding properly formatting references using APA. Students will be distributed a comprehensive list of references. Students must follow APA format when formatting these references. Students must use the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) for proper formatting. Students must organize these sources into a 'Reference' page similar to what you would see at the end of an article or research manuscript. |
| Criterion |
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| Students must correctly format a comprehensive list of references in APA style, 6th edition with 95 percent accuracy. |
| Finding |
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| 50 percent (N=7) of the Kinesiology graduate students met the minimum 95 percent criterion on the comprehensive formatting list of references in APA research style. A total of 14 students completed the assignment and seven met the criterion established in the goal. The remaining 50 percent (N=7) scored less than the 95 percent but equal to or greater than 80 percent on the assignment. Half of students reaching the criterion is unacceptable. We need to rethink the criterion or find another area on which to work toward improvement. |
Actions for Objective:
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After the review of student performance on the research skills/APA assignment, the graduate Kinesiology program faculty recognized that 50.0 percent of the students did not meet the target. Therefore, all core graduate kinesiology classes will have at least three faculty-developed assessments related to formatting references in APA style to assist students with the acquisition of these critical research skills. We will determine whether to modify the criterion to a range or find another area on which to improve. |
| GOAL: Survey Development |
| Objective |
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| Graduate Kinesiology students will be able to construct effective surveys that will produce meaningful data in their research. |
| Indicator |
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The goal of this assignment is to provide the student with some experience in constructing a usable survey that can be employed for data analysis (human factors research). Topic should be of interest and could turn into a publication. |
| Criterion |
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| Students must correctly construct/develop a survey for data analysis with 90 percent accuracy. |
| Finding |
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100 percent (N=17) of the Kinesiology graduate students met the minimum 90 percent criterion on the development of a comprehensive research survey for data analysis. A total of 17 students completed the assignment and all students met the criterion established in the goal. We are delighted with the 100 percent result and realize we cannot improve much more in this area. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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After the review of student performance on the survey development assignment, the graduate Kinesiology program faculty recognized that 100.0 percent of the students met the minimum 90 percent criterion established in the goal. The development of surveys and research assessments that allow for seamless data analysis is a critical skill that graduate students must embrace; therefore, the survey skills assignment will remain as a program assignment. Although the assignment will remain, students are fairly consistent with meeting an elevated criterion. Therefore, we will retire this objective and choose another area upon which to improve. |
| Closing the Loop |
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After reviewing all of the findings, it was noted that not all graduate Kinesiology students are achieving the expected outcomes in the area of formatting references in APA style. In an effort to address this learning outcome, the program faculty has decided to develop additional common embedded assignments, projects, and exams for developing competencies in the area of research skills/APA for the 2012-2013 academic year. Our goal will be to enlarge the criterion range or retire the objective. The graduate Kinesiology program faculty are pleased that student performance on the research survey requirement improved over the previous academic year. We have reached a level of success so that we will retire this as an objective for improvement and choose another.
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