SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2012 - 2013 : Educational Programs :
Family and Consumer Sciences BS (Fashion Merchandising)
Family and Consumer Sciences BS (Fashion Merchandising)
3 Goals 3 Objectives 3 Indicators 3 Criteria 3 Findings 3 Actions
| GOAL: Employer/Supervisor Satisfaction |
| Objective |
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| The students will demonstrate professional competence and the ability to apply what they have learned (egs., 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 five fashion merchandising BS graduates from the 2012-2013 cycle, 100% received a rating of 4 or 5 (i.e., greater than 3.5) by the internship employer/supervisor. One supervisor assigned a rating of 5+. 100% of supervisors stated that he/she would hire the intern for a suitable, entry-level position with the company. Therefore, this criterion was met. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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We modified 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. For this program (BS in Fashion Merchandising) 100% of the employers indicated they would hire without reservation, so therefore the additional feedback for which we were hoping was not forthcoming, although we are very pleased about the positive reception of 100% of these BS in FMD seniors as they prepared for the world of work. We are planning to modify this process for all of the programs that use this assessment. |
| 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 five fashion merchandising BS graduates from the 2012-2013 cycle, Exit Survey data was collected on four. Of the four, 100% received a grade of High Pass (1 or 25%) or Pass (3 or 75%). Therefore, this criterion was met. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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Because 100% of students passed the Exit Survey, 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 meet university requirements for computer literacy through assignments in two courses that are required of all undergraduate majors in the department. When it was decided to eliminate the requirement of a basic computer literacy course as part of the undergraduate core at SHSU, faculty in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences decided that, to assure competency in this area, students would be required to complete specific assignments in FACS 2368 (a written assignment requiring use of a word-processing program and a budget assignment requiring the use of a spreadsheet) and FACS 4362 (a presentation using PowerPoint). Satisfactory completion of these three assignments will indicate achievement of basic computer literacy skills that students are projected to need as they graduate from FCS programs and enter the world of work. |
| Indicator |
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| Students who graduate from undergraduate programs in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will satisfactorily complete three assignments in courses required of all undergraduate majors in the department: a word-processed assignment and a budget prepared using a spreadsheet in FACS 2368 Consumer Education and a presentation involving use of PowerPoint in FACS 4362 Presentation Techniques. |
| Criterion |
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| At least 90% of program majors who take the courses FACS 2368 and FACS 4362 during the 2012-2013 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 two students pursuing the BS in Fashion Merchandising who took the FACS 2368 course, one passed the course and one did not, apparently "quitting" the course without dropping it. The one who finished the course scored a 5 on the word-processing and spreadsheet assignment. Therefore, this criterion was met at 100% if the student who "quit without dropping" is excluded from the count. Four students took the FACS 4362 course in which the PowerPoint presentation was evaluated. Of these students, one scored a grade of 4, and the other three scored a grade of 5. Therefore, 100% scored a grade of 3 or better and this criterion was met. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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| The university requires that we measure and report results regarding computer literacy, and this is the means that has been chosen for this reporting. 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 is doing well, although there are areas where improvement is needed. Students leave the program with knowedge of the products with which they will be working and retail processes, including visual merchandising and the mathematics of merchandising. Students also gain real-world, hands-on experiences through the internship process. However, a greater effort needs to be made to collect a more complete data set through administration of the Exit Survey. 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. More work is needed on database management for 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 internship site visits, the program director for fashion merchandising 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 the 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 work 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 assessment. We need a clearer guideline as to what to do with students such as the one in FACS 2368 who "quit without dropping." Both of these items will modified for the coming year's assessment.
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