Assessment : 2012 - 2013 : Educational Programs :
Kinesiology MA
3 Goals 3 Objectives 3 Indicators 3 Criteria 3 Findings 3 Actions
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GOAL: Research Skills / APA Formatting
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Objective
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Research Skills/APA Formatting:
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MA Kinesiology students will be able to format references in scholarly works in the correct APA format.
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Indicator
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Research Skills/APA Formatting Mastery
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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 'References' page similar to what you would see at the end of an article or research manuscript.
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| Criterion |
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Research Skills/APA Formatting Assignment
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Students must correctly format a comprehensive list of references in APA style, 6th edition with 95 percent accuracy on the first evaluation. This list will include references from a wide range of resources and the information provided will challenge students to seek out additional information about each resource.
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| Finding |
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Research Skills/APA Formatting Assignment
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The results from the 2012-2013 Academic Year indicated that only 61.1% of students achieved a score of 95 or higher on the initial submission of the APA Formatting Assignment, while 88.9% of students achieved a score of 90 or higher on the initial submission.
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Actions for Objective:
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Research Skills-APA Formatting
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As this was the first year to collect information on this particular criterion measure, we felt as students’ initial performance was good overall, but could be better in future years. Thus, we recommend continuing with the current assessment while trying to incorporate other elements or feedback into the assignment to enhance students’ initial performance in this area. Given the difference between the 90th and 95th percentile ranking on the assignment, we would also recommend that the criterion be adjusted down to 90 percent accuracy for the initial submission, after which time the criterion can be adjusted to a higher level later.
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GOAL: Basic Statistics Interpretation
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Objective
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Basic Statistics Interpretation
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MA Kinesiology students will be able to interpret basic statistical findings that address descriptive statistics (i.e., descriptives), group differences (i.e., analysis of variance (ANOVA), prediction (i.e., simple and multiple regression), and nonparametic statistics (i.e., Chi-square).
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Indicator
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Basic Statistics Interpretation Mastery
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Assignments developed by program faculty will assess students’ ability to correctly interpret statistical findings that emerge from analysis conducted in SPSS. Students will be distributed a dataset and will be asked to execute different methods of analysis to address appropriate research questions. Students will then complete written assignments that address each particular type of analysis, which then be evaluated by a rubric developed by program faculty.
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Statistics Interpretation Assignments
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Students must correctly complete each of the statistics assignments attached to this objective with 80 percent accuracy. There will be a total of four assignments that address descriptive statistics (i.e., descriptives), group differences (i.e., analysis of variance (ANOVA), prediction (i.e., simple and multiple regression), and nonparametic statistics (i.e., Chi-square). In each case, the expectation is that the student will achieve a minimum of 80 percent mastery on each assignment, not a cumulative 80 percent on the four assignments.
This is a new objective this year, so we will be gathering baseline data.
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| Finding |
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Statistics Interpretation Assignments
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The results from the 2012-2013 Academic Year indicated that students met the criteria on the first three assignments in the following manner:
- Assignment #1 (Descriptives): 100% at 80 percent or higher
- Assignment #2 (Group Differences): 94.4% at 80 percent or higher
- Assignment #3 (Prediction): 81.3% at 80 percent or higher
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Actions for Objective:
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Statistical Interpretation
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The target criterion was met on the first three assignments. Assignment #4 (Nonparametric Statistics), however, saw a significant drop in performance with only 53.8% of students reaching the 80 percent mastery criterion on the assignment. As indicated in the original criterion, we were targeting 80 percent mastery on each of the four assignments as opposed to a cumulative 80 percent. Thus, the Action Plan for this objective will involve revisiting the assignment and approach to nonparametric statistics to improve performance in subsequent years. Additionally, student performance on the Group Differences and Prediction assignments will be targeted for continued improvement.
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GOAL: Cumulative Professional Development
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Objective
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Cumulative Professional Development
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MA Kinesiology students will be able to use their acquired knowledge, skills, and experience in a field experience setting.
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Indicator
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Cumulative Professional Development Mastery
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Students will be able to demonstrate professional competency in an applied setting. Students will engage in a variety of assignments including monthly blogs, weekly internship logs, and a cumulative reflection paper in order to demonstrate summary professional development. The cumulative portfolio is evaluated via a rubric established by program faculty. Students’ cumulative performance will also be evaluated by their internship site supervisor via a rubric established by program faculty.
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Site Supervisor Evaluation And Professional Portfolio
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Students’ final internship evaluation from the site supervisor must reach a minimum of an 85 percent rating. Additionally, the professional portfolio and all accompanying assignments presented by the student must also attain a minimum of an 85 percent rating.
Baseliline data will be gathered as this is a new objective in 2012-2013.
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| Finding |
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Site Supervisor Evaluation And Professional Portfolio
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Students’ cumulative performance on the final portfolio submission (93.4%) and the site supervisor ratings (86.5%) indicate that this criterion was attained for the 2012-2013 Academic Year.
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Actions for Objective:
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Professional Development Mastery
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It is recommended that the criterion be moved forward to a 90 percent rating on both dimensions in order better develop student performance in their capstone experience. While an eventual 100 percent rating in both dimensions would be ideal, it may be difficult to accomplish given the nature of the indicator and the involvement of external raters (i.e., site supervisor ratings). Thus, a 90 percent rating in both areas would represent significant progress for the coming Academic Year.
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Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement"
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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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Update on Previous Cycle's "Plan for Continuous Improvement"
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Students’ cumulative performance on the final portfolio submission (93.4%) and the site supervisor ratings (86.5%) indicate that this criterion was attained for the 2012-2013 Academic Year. It is recommended that the criterion be moved forward to a 90 percent rating on both dimensions in order better develop student performance in their capstone experience. While an eventual 100 percent rating in both dimensions would be ideal, it may be difficult to accomplish given the nature of the indicator and the involvement of external raters (i.e., site supervisor ratings). Thus, a 90 percent rating in both areas would represent significant progress for the coming Academic Year.
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Plan for Continuous Improvement
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Kinesiology program faculty will seek to enhance student performance in the applied research skills portion of our objectives by continuing to incorporate more elements into the APA formatting skills that each student should have upon program completion. We will also look to see if there are trends that exist regarding the types of references students are struggling with the most. Such trends may be able to help us tailor other portions of the assignments to better address these deficiencies. Additionally, nonparametric statistics will receive increased attention over the next Academic Year in order to enhance student performance on that criterion. We were, however, excited to see student progress on the parametric statistics portions of the criteria. We will revisit this assignment and the information provided to students to make sure that the measure is properly addressing this objective. Finally, student performance on the capstone experience seems to be meeting the criterion that we have established, therefore it becomes necessary to move that criterion forward to better encourage student progress and performance.
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