Archived Assessment Report
| Program | Criminology AA Degree |
| Assessment Reporter | [email protected] |
| Theme | Practicing Community |
| Review Year | 2024-2025 - Final Report |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| 5. Describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes. | Are 65% of our majors able to describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes? |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population or Courses Assessed | Hypothetical Analysis/Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5. Describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes. | Students complete an article analysis that asks them to transfer the information from the academic article to practical steps that can be taken to address inequality in criminal justice outcomes | SOC/CRIM Capstone; Methods | TBD |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Results | Reflection on Focus Area | Intepretation of Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5. Describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes. | There were a total of 12 students in the assessed course. Only 6 of those students completed the assessment. 5/6, or 83% of Capstone students in the summer of 2024 described the practical steps to support equitable social structures and/or create positive change. | The data support the focus area. However, the small sample size indicated we need to repeat the assessment with more students to gather reliable data to support our initial findings so far. | Our data suggest that students who participated in the assessment surpassed our expectations. However, we have plans to increase participation by expanding the courses used to assess the sociology/criminology majors |
| 5. Describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Increasing population size by including Methods (SOCI2410). Departmental review of the assessment tool. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No. |
| What data motivated the change? | Small sample sizes and a lack of participation |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | With those changes, we expect to see at least 70% of our students adequately describing practical steps to support equitable social structures and/or create positive change. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population of Courses Assessed |
|---|---|---|
| 5. Describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes. | TBD | Capstone (SOCI2999) and Methods (SOCI2410) |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Second Round Results | Intepretation of Results, Pre- and Post-Change | Follow up questions, possible next steps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5. Describe practical steps to support more equitable criminal justice outcomes. | We were unable to fully complete this step. We had a faculty change over in the summer and it was not communicated to the new faculty that Cap-Stone needed to be assessed in the summer. We only offer one section of Capstone in spring and summer so needed the summer students to do the second round. We were able to reassess our 1110 class many times as those classes make up the bulk of our course offerings. | Diversify the tools and data collection between GenEd and AAs |
Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.
Not really. And this came up in our most recent department meeting about assessment. Once again, we failed to articulate the development of these skills explicitly to students, and we think we should intertwine the universal theme more broadly into content throughout the semester. This way we can connect our teaching methods to the outcome and reduces speculation. That said, we did meet our goal and them some. We hoped that 65% of our Gen Ed students would be proficient at demonstrating their skill of practicing community. 75% in this last round meet that threshold. However, we have a new faculty working on the assessment data and the faculty member who previously had this task worked independently and the rest of us are not sure how she analyzed the data, dealt with missing data, etc. So the jump in percentage from the last time we assessed could possibly be an artifact of the data. Changes to methodology can often cause changes I the outcome beyond substantive factors.
Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?
One change is that we will be in better communication about how to measure the universal themes. We found out in this last round that we had differing ideas and our language for the rubric was vague and jargon filled. Moving forward, we have a plan better organization. Another change made is transparency in the assessment process. This includes more communication with PT instructors on the assessment process, how to conduct the assessment, and why it's important. This way we can ensure a more uniform data outcome.
What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?
We learned two main things: First, regarding the assessment tool, we learned that we need to be very specific in how we evaluate the assessments. We all had a vague sense of how our students would demonstrate proficient "practicing community" skills, but when we went to define the exact examples of "proficient" it was hard to articulate. In this next round, we will have clear definitions of we mean when we say "professional skills." And how to incorporate the sociology of it all in the assignment. Second, we learned that we need to ALSO articulate exactly what we mean by "practicing community" to the students. As faculty, we were not all on board with how we described assignments and assessments being connected to the universal theme. We decided we'd like to be more explicit in how the assessment is a way for them to demonstrate a transferable skill, such as practicing community and professional skills. This will also able them to be specific about their developed transferable skills when talking with employers and other educators.
Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.
One main issue impacting the data for the AAs specifically was a change over in faculty teaching the capstone course. One of our FT faculty took an administrative role and the class was given to a new PT person (who has taught the class before) and it was not communicated to this faculty that we needed the summer course to be assessed in order to complete our second round. That said, we are possibly doing an AdHoc assessment of their final projects. There won't be continuity with the previous assessment, but it's an opportunity to assess practicing community from a different tool. This is still being worked out.