SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2012 - 2013 : Educational Programs :
Criminal Justice BA
Criminal Justice BA
2 Goals 2 Objectives 2 Indicators 2 Criteria 2 Findings 2 Actions
| GOAL: Specific Knowledge Acquired By All Undergraduates |
| Objective |
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Graduating seniors will exhibit comprehensive knowledge of core criminal justice course work. |
| Indicator |
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Each semester, all graduating seniors are asked to complete an exit exam, on the SHSU Blackboard academic support system, that provides faculty a means of assessing students' comprehension and retention on key concepts provided to them during their educational experience. The 60-item Exit Exam, created by faculty, assesses learning in seven core areas. |
| Criterion |
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The average on each competency area: (1) Criminal Law; (2) Corrections; (3) Law Enforcement; (4) Courts; (5) Theory/Criminology (6) Research Methods/Statistics, and (7) Diversity within the Criminal Justice System will be at least 75% for graduating seniors taking the exit exam, except for the average on Theory/Criminology. Last year this average was below 70%. We hope to see this average rise this year. |
| Finding |
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Graduating seniors (191 out of 442) achieved an average of 67% on the overall exit exam and between 57% and 73% on the component areas representing the undergraduate curriculum. Senior exit exam scores for the 2012-2013 academic year indicated that students had the following averages across the six core competency areas: Criminal Law - 73%, Corrections - 70%, Policing and Law Enforcement - 71%, Courts - 69%, Criminology/Theory - 57 %, Research Methods/Statistics - 72%, Crime, Justice, and Social Diversity - 71%. Results indicated that the graduating seniors scored at or above 70% on all competency areas except for Courts and Criminology/Theory. |
Actions for Objective:
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| For the first time since we have been administering the exit exam, our students fell a little short of our 70% average score criterion. However, there seemed to be several new items on the exit exam that were problematic. We also had a low response rate; less than half of our graduating seniors completed the exit exam. In the next academic year we will closely examine our exit exam items and attempt to obtain a higher completion rate. |
| GOAL: Development Of Writing And Research Skills |
| Objective |
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| Students will demonstrate competence in their writing and research skills. |
| Indicator |
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Undergraduate criminal justice students will develop a scholarly research paper proposal in their core required Research Methods course (CRIJ 3378). Writing and research skills will be scored by a rubric agreed upon by a faculty committee. Each professor will utilize this rubric when grading the student research paper proposals. These guidelines include areas of organization, content, quality of proposed research, hypothesis construction and writing. |
| Criterion |
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| The majority of students will score at 75% or above on the research paper proposal scoring rubric. |
| Finding |
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The 175 students, out of the 774 students who completed the Research Methods course (CRIJ 3378), were assessed by the scoring rubric and scored an average of 75% overall on the writing and research paper review. Their total average score was 3.8 out of 5. The overall score on the writing and research skills rubric is comprised of nine areas (average scores in parentheses): Relevance to the field (4.2), contribution to academic debate (3.7), structure/organization of the paper (3.7), writing and grammar (3.5), appropriateness of the research/study method (3.7), abstract information (4.0), construction of hypotheses (3.6), whether the importance of the study is made obvious (3.9), and adequate and correctly cited references (3.6). The students scored well in each area with averages between 72% and 84%. Lower scores were found in the areas of writing and grammar usage, hypothesis construction, and references. Although the students performed well and met the goal with an overall average of 75%, we are still missing assessment from many of our students taking this course. Most sections of the Research Methods course did not utilize the rubric. Approximately 240 students were not required to complete a research paper because the course was taught in the auditorium. However, there remains approximately 350 students that were not assessed. |
Actions for Objective:
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Increase the quality and quantity of the writing and research skills of our undergraduates. We will also meet with the Research Methods instructors to discuss and ensure the use of the developed scoring rubric for the continued assessment of our student’s writing and research skills. |
| Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement" |
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Moving forward into the 2012-2013 academic year we will assess and improve our undergraduate programs. During the last academic year we began implementing our updated and approved BA and BS programs. The goals for the BA/BS for the 2012-2013 academic year will include these latest objectives.
During the academic year of 2011-2012 we exceeded our goal of having our graduating seniors score at the 70th (or higher) percentile on all exit exam component areas except one. The overall score was 77%. Thus, overall our new curriculum seems to be increasing our students’ knowledge. Additionally, in the majority of the component areas, our students scored very high. As in the previous years, our students scored below expectations on the area of Criminology/Theory. We will monitor the scores in the component areas for possible deficiencies or warranted changes in our courses. During the 2012-2013 academic year we will embolden and support our undergraduates in their efforts to develop their research and writing skills by encouraging and supporting their attendance at local, regional, and national conferences. Additionally, we will meet with all Research Methods instructors to ensure the assessment rubric’s application in order to obtain a larger assessment of our students’ writing and research proposal skills. |
| Update on Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement" |
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We did continue to monitor and administer the exit exam in attempt to measure how our undergraduates were obtaining the important knowledge of their discipline. We also examined the component areas of the degree program and found Criminology Theory, again, to be the lowest score. |
| Plan for Continuous Improvement |
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The College of Criminal Justice will continue to assess our student's comprehensive knowledge of the discipline. We will also assess our exit exam to determine appropriate items and improve the completion rate of the exam.
We will also continue to assess and support our undergraduates in the development of research and writing skills. |