SACS Reaffirmation
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Assessment : 2007 - 2008 : Educational Programs :
Political Science BS
3 Goals 4 Objectives 4 Indicators 4 Criteria 4 Findings 4 Actions
GOAL: Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
| Objective | Civic Involvement | |
| Throughout their enrollment, students will participate in several activities designed to promote their civic involvement in local, state, and national government and politics Associated Goals: Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics |
| Indicator | Civic Involvement Students' civic involvement will be measured through their participation in the internship program, the Junior Fellows program, and voter registration and voter education activities. |
| Criteria | Civic Involement The department will offer at least 20 internships per year, promote at least 40 Junior Fellows Program activities per year, and involve 6 or more of the Department’s American Government 261 courses in voter education projects. |
| Finding | Civic Involvement The department offered roughly 20 internships at the local, state, and federal levels of government. As we had hoped the reduction in the number of internships from 40 to 20 allowed us to focus strictly on internships that promised very rewarding experiences (e.g., numerous opportunities to make professional contacts, involvement in important and high profile projects, direct and consistent professional training, etc) and allowed us to grant internships only to high quality students by making the application process more competitive (e.g., requiring higher GPAs, better writing samples, etc). We had anticipated involving six of our 261 courses in voter registration and voter education projects. Students enrolled in seven of our 261 courses listened to a lecture addressing voter registration and voting and received voter registration cards. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Civic Involvement We will continue to offer roughly 20 internships per year. We will increase the number of 261 courses involved in voter registration and voter education projects from roughly 40% to at least 60% or more. |
GOAL: Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
| Objective | Forms Of Government | |
| Throughout their enrollment, students will explore the following themes in a national and international context: the structure and operation of various forms of government, political philosophies, informal and formal political organizations and actors, public policies, and political behavior Associated Goals: Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics |
| Indicator | Knowledge Of Government And Politics Each field of study will be assigned a team of 2 faculty members who have expertise in the particular field. Each semester the individual teams will receive and review 5 randomly selected papers from an upper division course in their respective fields. Papers will be scored using a simple scoring system of A, B , C, D, and F. |
| Criteria | Forms of Government We expect that (1) faculty scores will not vary in the vast majority of cases and when there is a difference in scores the difference will not be greater than a single letter grade and (2) at least 70% of the papers will score at the C level or above |
| Finding | Knowledge of government Faculty assigned the majority of papers the same scores. When there were differences in scores, the differences did not exceed a full letter grade. 78% of the papers scored at the C level or better. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Knowledge of government Each field of study will be assigned a team of 2 faculty members who have expertise in the particular field. Each semester the individual teams will receive and review 5 randomly selected papers from an upper division course in their respective fields. These changes will correct the problems we encountered in our initial attempt to assess student knowledge. We will continue to expect that (1) faculty scores will not vary in the vast majority of cases and when there is a difference in scores the difference will not be greater than a single letter grade and (2) at least 70% of the papers will score at the C level or above. |
GOAL: Develop Students' Skills
| Objective | Skills | |
| Throughout their enrollment, students must complete extensive writing assignments that require the following abilities: analyze scholarly writing, interpret empirical data, understand argumentation, express well thought out opinions, and write clearly and correctly Associated Goals: Develop Students' Skills |
| Indicator | Skills Faculty members teaching #379 will randomly select 5 papers from each course. All papers will be reviewed by the faculty members. Faculty members will use an agreed upon criteria to evaluate the papers. Papers will be scored using a simple scoring system of A, B , C, D, and F. |
| Criteria | Skills We expect that (1) faculty scores will not vary in the vast majority of cases and when there is a difference in scores the difference will not be greater than a single letter grade and (2) at least 70% of the papers will score at the C level or above |
| Finding | Skills Faculty were in general agreement regarding the scores assigned to students'' papers. When there was a difference in faculty scores, the difference did not exceed a full letter grade. Over 75% of the papers were scored at or above the C level. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Skills We will continue to review papers written by students enrolled in Pol Sci 379. We will continue to expect that (1) faculty scores will not vary in the vast majority of cases and when there is a difference in scores the difference will not be greater than a single letter grade and (2) at least 70% of the papers will score at the C level or above. |
GOAL: Prepare Students For Professional Careers
| Objective | Professional Marketplace | |
| Upon graduation, students will be prepared to enter the professional marketplace
Associated Goals: Prepare Students For Professional Careers |
| Indicator | Professional Market Skills  Graduating seniors will complete the online undergraduate exit survey. Data from questions 3 and 4 of the undergraduate exit survey will be used to evaluate students' professional skills. |
| Criteria | Professional Market Skills We will anticipate that at least 70% of our graduating seniors will answer yes to question 3d or question 4d and at least 50% or more will answer yes to question 3c or question 4a. |
| Finding | Professional marketplace 100% of the students responding to the survey answered yes to question 3d (Do you feel that your academic training has given you the skills necessary to pursue graduate studies?) and 100% of the students responding to the survey answered yes to question 4d (Do you feel that your academic training has given you the skills necessary to pursue professional employment?). Although the results are quite positive the low response rate (9/32) is problematic. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Professional marketplace We continue to encounter problems with the response rate despite the shift from mail surveys to online surveys. We believe we can increase the response rate if me make a more concerted effort to inform students about the survey. Previously students were sent two emails reminders towards the end of the semester. In the future we will send out monthly email reminders throughout the semester, make announcements in classes, and post information in areas frequented by our students. We will continue to send the reminders until we have reached a reasonable response rate. |