SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2012 - 2013 : Educational Programs :
Family and Consumer Sciences BA (Fashion Merchandising)
Family and Consumer Sciences BA (Fashion Merchandising)
3 Goals 3 Objectives 3 Indicators 3 Criteria 3 Findings 3 Actions
| GOAL: Employer/Supervisor Evaluation |
| Objective |
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The student will demonstrate professional competence and the ability to apply what they have learned (e.g., appropriate product knowledge, knowledge of business procedures, knowledge of industry systems) in various aspects of fashion merchandising. |
| Indicator |
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| The supervisor evaluation form for fashion merchandising interns evaluates three skill areas (personal skills, interpersonal skills, and professional characteristics including appropriate use of knowledge from the program content). Both questions from this form used as indicators are essentially overall supervisor ratings of the intern. One of them rates the interns on a Likert-type scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest rating. The other is a "yes-yes with reservations-no" indicator of whether the employer would hire the intern in the company for an entry-level management position. Internship is a requirement for degree completion in this program, so all fashion merchandising students are evaluated in this way. The instrument, which includes the supervisor rating of the intern that will be extracted and reported, was developed by the department faculty as a whole. Instruments used by other family and consumer sciences/fashion merchandising colleges and departments were reviewed in the development of the instrument. The attached instrument was designed to be generic for all programs in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences that require this type of internship and is published in the Internship Handbook which serves as the textbook for the internship course (FCS 469). The other programs that use this same form are interior design, general family and consumer sciences (without a teaching certificate), and food service management. |
| Criterion |
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| At least 80% of business supervisors of fashion merchandising interns will give the intern a rating of 3.5 or higher on a 5.0 scale and 80% of business supervisors will indicate that they would hire the intern given the availability of a suitable entry-level management position in the company. |
| Finding |
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Of the twelve fashion merchandising B.A. graduates for 2012-2013, rating data was collected for eight. Of the eight, 100% received a rating of 4 or 5 (i.e., greater than 3.4) by the internship supervisor/employer. Six out of the eight (75%) received a rating of 5, and two received a rating of 4. As to whether they would hire the intern, this data was collected on nine, and 100% of the 9 supervisors indicated they would hire the intern. Therefore, this criterion was met. |
Actions for Objective:
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We modifieded the evaluation form this past cycle to include three options rather than two (yes or no) as there had been in the past. This time we divided the “yes” option into “yes, hire without reservation” and “yes, hire with reservation” in the hope of getting additional feedback for program improvement. However, although we received both responses, there was little feedback, so we are planning to further modify the process. |
| GOAL: Student Knowledge Of Content Area |
| Objective |
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| Students graduating from the fashion merchandising program will demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary for entry-level management in fashion retailing/merchandising positions. |
| Indicator |
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| The Exit Survey for fashion merchandising majors includes multiple-choice and short-answer sections that test retention of course material and a case study that applies directly to retail apparel merchandising; it is graded on a pass/fail basis. (Each program area has multiple-choice, short answer and other questions that are specific to that program content.) To develop this instrument, faculty in the content area reviewed course and program objectives and chose questions from exams that reflected important concepts that students should retain. The test is used repetitively and the scoring is consistent. For security reasons, the "test" portion (multiple-choice questions, short essay questions, and case study) is not attached. However, this document is available in the chair's office. |
| Criterion |
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| At least 90% of students who complete the fashion merchandising program's Exit Survey will score a grade of Low Pass, Pass or High Pass on the content portions of the exam. |
| Finding |
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| Of the twelve fashion merchandising BA graduates for 2012-2013, data was collected on eight. Of the eight, 100% passed the Exit Survey with a rating of High Pass (three out of eight or 37.5%) or Pass (five out of eight or 62.5%). Therefore, this criterion was met. |
Actions for Objective:
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Because 100% of students who took this Survey passed, we are working with the idea of abandoning this instrument and instead using the scoring on fourteen professional skills identified as critical to professional success on the Performance Appraisal of Student Intern as completed by the Internship Supervisor. |
| GOAL: Computer Literacy |
| Objective |
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| Students will demonstrate computer literacy through specific assignments in FACs 2368 (word-processing assignment and a budget assignment using a spreadsheet) and in FACS 4362 (a presentation using PowerPoint), two courses that are required of all undergraduate majors in the department. Satisfactory completion of these three assignments will indicate achievement of basic computer literacy skills that students are projected to need as they graduate from fashion merchandising programs and enter the world of work. |
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There is a specific common rubric for each assignment. |
| Criterion |
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| At least 90% of program majors who take the courses FACS 2368 and FACS 4362 during the 2011-2012 academic year will score 3 or better on a 5-point scale with 5 being the highest score and 1 being the lowest score on the three assignments that are required to meet this computer literacy competency. Examples of assignment sheets for these three assignments and rubrics for grading them are attached. |
| Finding |
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| Of the 12 students who completed FACS 2368, 10/12 (83.3%) scored a grade of five on the project that including the word-processing and spreadsheet projects. Therefore, this criterion was not met for these two aspects of the computer literacy measure. Of the 12 students who took FACS 4362, 100% scored a grade of 4 or 5 on the PowerPoint presentation. Therefore, this criterion was met for this area of computer literacy. (These were different sets of students, although there may have been some small amount of overlap in the two groups.) |
Actions for Objective:
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| We are looking into the matter of the students who did not complete the assignments, although one of them did receive a passing grade for the course. This assignment is given in an on-line course, and we believe that it is the specific project that is targeted for this report that is the problem, and that perhaps it is not the best measure of students' computer literacy. Yet the university requires that we measure and report results regarding computer literacy, and this is the means that was chosen and worked well at one time. Overall, it is obvious that students are entering the university with good computer literacy skills and are further developing these skills during their time as undergraduate students. |
| Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement" |
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Overall, this program continues to be successful as business supervisors and graduating seniors report high levels of satisfaction with this program. Students leave the program with knowledge of the products with which they will be working and retail processes, including visual merchandising and an understanding of the mathematics of merchandising. They also gain real world, hands-on experiences through the internship process. The greater effort that was promised in last year's cycle to collect a more complete data set was successful. A greater effort was made to bring in program graduates, especially more recent ones, to address the idea of the strong work ethic that is needed in the retail and wholesale apparel industry. Students were successful with the computer literacy component of the program. Faculty put greater emphasis on case studies and applying course material, and this appears to have had a positive impact on student success. The program emphasizes preparing its graduates for the workplace and in recruiting and retaining students throughout the 2-4 years they are enrolled in the program.
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| Update on Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement" |
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Having just completed several site visits, the program director can attest to the idea that the speakers who were brought in during this past year did indeed stress the need for a strong work ethic as reflected in the comments made by business supervisors during site visits. Feedback from this population indicated that students preparing for graduation were prepared for the workplace. Also during this past year, the Merchandising Control course (the "retail buyer's math" portion of the curriculum) was revamped with a greater emphasis on peer tutoring and working in small groups or teams, simulating real world experiences. Overall, the feedback from this change has been extremely positive.
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| Plan for Continuous Improvement |
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The two items targeted for improvement have to do with program assessment. One of them is to abandon the Exit Survey and instead focus on the fourteen professional skills outlined in the Internship Supervisor Evaluation Form. The other item has to do with the computer literacy assignment and the particular assignment that was targeted for the assessment. Both of these items will be modified for the coming year's assessment.
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