Archived Assessment Report
| Program | EMS Medical Tech-Intermediate Certificate |
| Assessment Reporter | [email protected] |
| Theme | Practicing Community |
| Review Year | 2024-2025 - Final Report |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Focus Area |
|---|---|
| 1. Part A: Affective Domain | N/A |
| 2. This course prepares the student to be able to: | N/A |
| 3. Be a role model of exemplary professional behavior including: but not limited to, integrity, empathy, self-motivation, appearance/personal hygiene, self-confidence, communications, time management, teamwork/ diplomacy, respect, patient advocacy, and careful delivery of service. (Professionalism) | Are students consistently meeting the minimum competency of 26/36 points on their Professional Behavior evaluations? |
| 4. Preparedness: the student consistently arrived on time with required materials and was ready to learn. | Are students consistently arriving for classes on time with all required materials? |
| 5. Professional appearance: the student is dressed appropriately and is neat in appearance. No hygiene issues. | Do students consistently arrive for class sessions professionally groomed and without hygiene concerns? |
| 6. Initiative: student demonstrates interest in EMS through actions and interactions with evaluator. | During class interactions, do students actions show that they have an interest/ passion for the EMS profession? |
| 7. Conduct: Student interacts with other in a respectful and empathetic manner. Demonstrates respectability and professional ethics. | Do students consistently demonstrate respect, empathy, and professional ethics while interacting with their instructors, classmates and patients? |
| 8. Careful Delivery of Service: Student follows policies, procedures & protocols. Uses appropriate safeguards in the performance of duties. | Do students consistently follow written policies and procedures during their classroom or clinical interactions with fellow students, faculty and/ or patients and preceptors? |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population or Courses Assessed | Hypothetical Analysis/Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Part A: Affective Domain | Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493, EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the assessment tool adequately gives us a consistent, accurate evaluation of the student’s affective domain. Additionally, we wish to evaluate of the cognitive and psychomotor questions are necessary or relevant to the evaluation. |
| 2. This course prepares the student to be able to: | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 3. Be a role model of exemplary professional behavior including: but not limited to, integrity, empathy, self-motivation, appearance/personal hygiene, self-confidence, communications, time management, teamwork/ diplomacy, respect, patient advocacy, and careful delivery of service. (Professionalism) | - Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493 and EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the rubric gives a consistent, accurate evaluation of our student’s ability to be role models of the professional attributes listed. |
| 4. Preparedness: the student consistently arrived on time with required materials and was ready to learn. | Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493, EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the rubric will give us a consistent and accurate determination of a student’s timeliness, professional grooming standards, and preparedness to learn in class and clinical settings. |
| 5. Professional appearance: the student is dressed appropriately and is neat in appearance. No hygiene issues. | Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493, EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the rubric will consistently give us feedback on our students ability to meet/ exceed the program dress code and inform us of students with consistent hygiene concerns. |
| 6. Initiative: student demonstrates interest in EMS through actions and interactions with evaluator. | Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493, EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the rubric will provide a consistent, accurate determination of a student’s interest in the EMS profession through their classroom and clinical interactions. |
| 7. Conduct: Student interacts with other in a respectful and empathetic manner. Demonstrates respectability and professional ethics. | Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493, EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the rubric will provide consistent and accurate determination of a student’s ability to interact with fellow students, faculty, preceptors and patients in a respectful and empathetic manner. Additionally, we wish to determine if use of the rubric can give us a consistent, accurate determination of a students use of professional ethics while in class or clinicals. |
| 8. Careful Delivery of Service: Student follows policies, procedures & protocols. Uses appropriate safeguards in the performance of duties. | Behavioral rubric used to gain an overall evaluation of the affective domain of our students. Additionally, there are a couple of questions that address their cognitive and psychomotor abilities. | EMS 1493, EMS 1890 | We wish to determine if the assessment tool adequately gives us a consistent, accurate evaluation of the student’s affective domain. Additionally, we wish to evaluate of the cognitive and psychomotor questions are necessary or relevant to the evaluation. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Summary of Results | Reflection on Focus Area | Intepretation of Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Part A: Affective Domain | We found three short-comings to our data collection. 1. By not evaluating the affective domain in all courses, we limited the ability to catch data that differs between our theory and lab courses. 2. We also found that by not having the rubric electronically tied into the Bs course shells, we were only getting an total score, and not the necessary score for each of the items. 3. we learned that our current rubric is insufficient to gather the data we need to mirror industry standards. | We understand the need to properly and effectively assess our students in the affective domain, but historic/ current methods are ineffective to gathering the needed information. A new rubric is necessary! | It is near impossible to use our current method to effectively to pull the data needed to review and truly see a students full performance in the affective domain. A new rubric is needed. |
| 2. This course prepares the student to be able to: | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 3. Be a role model of exemplary professional behavior including: but not limited to, integrity, empathy, self-motivation, appearance/personal hygiene, self-confidence, communications, time management, teamwork/ diplomacy, respect, patient advocacy, and careful delivery of service. (Professionalism) | Most students are consistently meeting this outcome with a score of 3 or 4. | This shows that our students generally perform well in the areas evaluated in the assessment. However, it is quite broad and makes it difficult to clearly evaluate students struggling with some, but not all of the behaviors. | Is the inability to score students on these attributes in smaller groups leading to artificially inflated scores. |
| 4. Preparedness: the student consistently arrived on time with required materials and was ready to learn. | This is yet another assessment that it seems most students do well in. Though after spot-visiting being in several classes in the program, I see that not all faculty have the same standards/ metrics for to tracking and documenting tardiness or student preparedness. | While most students do not struggle with tardiness, a few are chronically late and this is not reflected in their scores. Meaning that despite their chronic tardiness or unpreparedness for class, they are still receiving high marks. | Scores seem to be inflated and may not accurately reflect the students actions. |
| 5. Professional appearance: the student is dressed appropriately and is neat in appearance. No hygiene issues. | While most students receive a score of 4 on this outcome, it allows faculty to address the handful of hygiene or uniform policy compliance issues we encounter every term. | This outcome supports the hypothesis in that about 98+% of our students meet the mark with a score of 4. | The results support that this outcome is met by most students and allows for coaching the handful that fall short. |
| 6. Initiative: student demonstrates interest in EMS through actions and interactions with evaluator. | Scores show that a predominate number of our students clearly interact and behave in a manner that shows they are interested in the EMS profession. | The data shows that the data in this are correlates to the hypothesis. | This data show what we expected, that a majority of our students clearly interact in a professional manner that shows their interest in the EMS industry. |
| 7. Conduct: Student interacts with other in a respectful and empathetic manner. Demonstrates respectability and professional ethics. | The data shows that most students appropriately interact with their instructors, fellow students, and others personnel encountered in the course of their training - preceptors, community partners... | I believe that this area accurately reflects our students ability to play nice in the sandbox and shows they are prepared to conduct themselves professionally in industry. | A majority of students clearly conduct themselves professionally in their interactions with others - faculty, fellow students, administration, community partners. This data point performs well. |
| 8. Careful Delivery of Service: Student follows policies, procedures & protocols. Uses appropriate safeguards in the performance of duties. | The data shows that most students meet the criteria for score of 3 at mid-term and 4 at final. Therefore, this data point does perform as expected. | This point does reflect a students ability to follow policies and procedures. While the data point does include a note on cognitive and psychomotor evaluation, it seems best to move those to separate evaluations during a different assessment cycle. | The data point performs as expected and should only be altered to remove the cognitive and psychomotor areas. |
| 1. Part A: Affective Domain | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | We have altered our assessment process to ensure we remedy the three shortcomings. 1. We expanded to include two affective assessments in all theory courses. Students are now being assessed between eight and twelve times per semester. While this may seem excessive, it allows us to document our students progression toward entry competence throughout the semester and program. 2. We have built an electronic rubric in Brightspace to allow for all data to be housed in one place. This eases tracking of completion, and allows for faster review/ reporting. 3. For consistency, we have opted to change to the affective rubric used at the paramedic level of our program. This rubric ensures students are scored in all areas that our industry feels are necessary to produce entry level competent EMS personnel. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | The purpose, process and expectations of our affective evaluations will remain the same. Only the rubric will be changed. |
| What data motivated the change? | 1. We found that only assessing students in lab and clinical interactions was insufficient. Adding affective evaluations to our theory courses ensures that students are evaluated in all aspects of the AEMT Program. 2. While our initial rubric was helpful, it was inadequate and failed to solely focus in a students affective behaviors. The new rubric is exclusive to affective assessment and expands to ensure we are gaining a well rounded view of the student. This allows for better coaching and tracking student progress through out the program. Ensuring we can honestly say the student is entry level competent in all areas of affective behavior upon graduation. 3. prior to placing the rubric in Brightspace, all affective rubrics were handwritten then scanned for saving digitally. This was time consuming, unreliable, and wasteful of resources. By having everything in Brightspace, we can review and track all classes and assessments in one clearly defined place. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | By changing to these three areas, I expect that we will have clearer affective assessments on all AEMT students, in all areas of the AEMT Program, and an easier time tracking/ reporting on those outcomes moving forward. |
| 2. This course prepares the student to be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | N/A |
| Type of Change | |
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | N/A |
| What data motivated the change? | N/A |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | N/A |
| 3. Be a role model of exemplary professional behavior including: but not limited to, integrity, empathy, self-motivation, appearance/personal hygiene, self-confidence, communications, time management, teamwork/ diplomacy, respect, patient advocacy, and careful delivery of service. (Professionalism) | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | The outcome of this will not change. However, the grade will change due to the difference in points available on the new rubric. The updated rubric has a total of 24 points and to meet the minimum, students must obtain a 70% overall score which equates to 17/24 total points. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | No alterations to the purpose or use of the process. Only the rubric is changing. |
| What data motivated the change? | We still find this to be an effective data point and grade for our students overall performance on affective evaluations. Only the points will change. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | I do not expect to see any significant changes by implementing a new rubric. However, due to the new evaluation rubric solely focusing on affective behaviors, we may see some lower grades early in the term that will require increased counseling to aid students with improving their affective behaviors. |
| 4. Preparedness: the student consistently arrived on time with required materials and was ready to learn. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | How this outcome is evaluated will change with the new rubric. On the old rubric, this outcome was a standalone evaluation. On the new rubric, this outcome will be evaluated with a combination of area scores - accountability, self-motivation, and self-confidence. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | The only alteration will be tying the three individual data points to this outcome on the new rubric in Brightspace. |
| What data motivated the change? | Moving to the new rubric required that instead of using one data point to assess this outcome, we now use data combined from three areas to assess this outcome. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | I believe that using three separate scores combined to evaluate this outcome will give a clearer view of how the student is actually performing. |
| 5. Professional appearance: the student is dressed appropriately and is neat in appearance. No hygiene issues. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | No changes planned. The new rubric allows for this outcome to be assessed individually. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | Just the new rubric implementation. |
| What data motivated the change? | No change planned. Outcome is still assessed as an individual point. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | N/A |
| 6. Initiative: student demonstrates interest in EMS through actions and interactions with evaluator. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | This outcome will not change. However, instead of evaluating this on one data point, we will now be evaluating the outcome from several data points. Students will now be evaluated on this outcome through the following data - accountability, respect, self-motivation, self-confidence, and communication. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | The only alterations are the new rubric and tying this outcome to the five new data areas needed to evaluate it. |
| What data motivated the change? | The new rubric requires that we alter how we collect data in this outcome. Therefore, we will be using scores from five pieces of data to evaluate this outcome. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | I believe that changing to the new rubric and using more data points to evaluate this outcome will allow for a clearer picture of how the student is performing on this outcome. |
| 7. Conduct: Student interacts with other in a respectful and empathetic manner. Demonstrates respectability and professional ethics. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Due to the implementation of the new rubric, this outcome will be tied to several new data points on the new rubric. Moving forward, this outcome will be evaluated by the score in nine areas- integrity, compassion, accountability, empathy, respect, communication, teamwork/diplomacy, patient advocacy, and cultural competence. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | Only alterations are the new rubric and tying the outcome to the nine data areas on the new rubric. |
| What data motivated the change? | Due to the change in the rubric, this outcome must now be evaluates through the score in nine data areas, instead of just one. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | I believe that this change will allow for a clearer view of the students professional conduct with faculty, fellow students and patients (real and simulated). |
| 8. Careful Delivery of Service: Student follows policies, procedures & protocols. Uses appropriate safeguards in the performance of duties. | |
|---|---|
| Describe the change that was implemented. | Implementing a new affective grading rubric and utilizing five data points to acquire the grade for this outcome. |
| Type of Change |
|
| Change in Assessment Approach or Tools? | New rubric and tying the outcome to five criteria for grading - accountability, integrity, self-confidence, self-motivation, and communication. |
| What data motivated the change? | The need for a new affective rubric that allows for cleaner and clearer evaluation of a students affective behaviors was needed. With the addition of that rubric, we now need to compile the score for this outcome through evaluation of the various parts being graded - integrity, accountability, self-motivation, self-confidence, and communication. |
| Hypothesis about the effect the change will have? | I believe that the use of the new rubric and tying this outcome to five different criteria will allow for a clearer picture of a students performance in this outcome area. |
| Learning Outcome (or Gen Ed Essential Skill) | Description of Assessment Tool | Population of Courses Assessed |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Part A: Affective Domain | Unlike the old rubric, the new one solely focuses on affective traits, allowing for a clearer evaluation of a students affective behaviors. As such, it will our faculty to better coach student toward becoming entry-level competent in the affective domain. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 2. This course prepares the student to be able to: | N/A | N/A |
| 3. Be a role model of exemplary professional behavior including: but not limited to, integrity, empathy, self-motivation, appearance/personal hygiene, self-confidence, communications, time management, teamwork/ diplomacy, respect, patient advocacy, and careful delivery of service. (Professionalism) | Unlike the old rubric, the new one solely focuses on affective traits, allowing for a clearer evaluation of a students affective behaviors. As such, it will our faculty to better coach student toward becoming entry-level competent in the affective domain. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 4. Preparedness: the student consistently arrived on time with required materials and was ready to learn. | Unlike the old rubric, the new one solely focuses on affective traits, allowing for a clearer evaluation of a student’s affective behaviors. As such, it will our faculty to better coach student toward becoming entry-level competent in the affective domain. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 5. Professional appearance: the student is dressed appropriately and is neat in appearance. No hygiene issues. | New rubric includes appearance and personal hygiene as a stand-alone grade. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 6. Initiative: student demonstrates interest in EMS through actions and interactions with evaluator. | Unlike the old rubric, the new one solely focuses on affective traits, allowing for a clearer evaluation of a student’s affective behaviors. As such, it will our faculty to better coach student toward becoming entry-level competent in the affective domain. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 7. Conduct: Student interacts with other in a respectful and empathetic manner. Demonstrates respectability and professional ethics. | Unlike the old rubric, the new one solely focuses on affective traits, allowing for a clearer evaluation of a student’s affective behaviors. As such, it will our faculty to better coach student toward becoming entry-level competent in the affective domain. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 8. Careful Delivery of Service: Student follows policies, procedures & protocols. Uses appropriate safeguards in the performance of duties. | Unlike the old rubric, the new one solely focuses on affective traits, allowing for a clearer evaluation of a student’s affective behaviors. As such, it will our faculty to better coach student toward becoming entry-level competent in the affective domain. | EMS 1412, EMS 1493, EMS 1890 |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Part A: Affective Domain | Over all the implementation of the three planned changes led to mostly positive outcomes, but it wasn’t all fruitful. On the positive side, change one – expanding to assess students in all aspects of the program (theory, lab, clinical and internship), allows us to evaluate all students several times in all courses. These focused affective evaluations are giving us the ability to track a student’s behaviors and give frequent feedback/ coaching to allow them to understand where improvements must be made. It also allows us the ability to use the behavioral tracking when students must be placed on a PIP. Additionally, by implementing a new rubric that exclusively focuses on affective traits, we have seen improvement with scoring students and being able to clearly articulate where students need to work on making improvements. We believe that these improved scores allow our faculty to state whether a student is affectively prepared for field work or not and confidently use the evaluations to support our assertions. Finally, our third change is where we see the mixed results. On the one hand, adding a rubric into our Brightspace shells was wonderful in aiding with faculty buy-in, simplicity with completion (no more paper forms that required manual grade entry, scanning and transfer to SharePoint for long term storage), and lower duplication expenses. It has also been easier to review the completed evaluations without needing to search for them in SharePoint. However, there was one dark spot with this change. Unfortunately, we have found that all rubrics must be downloaded individually from Brightspace, and these downloads can only be done when the course shell is still active. This has proven to be much more time consuming that anticipated and we feel that we may need to consider a move from the rubric in Brightspace to a fillable Word or PDF document. | Outcomes need review and updating. | |
| 2. This course prepares the student to be able to: | N/A | N/A | |
| 3. Be a role model of exemplary professional behavior including: but not limited to, integrity, empathy, self-motivation, appearance/personal hygiene, self-confidence, communications, time management, teamwork/ diplomacy, respect, patient advocacy, and careful delivery of service. (Professionalism) | The data shows that most students are still meeting the minimum score (17/24) on the new rubric. Leading us to determine that most of our students are affectively prepared to be entry-level EMS practitioners. The new rubric took the score for the outcome and spread it across the entirety of the assessment, the scoring moved from a single data point score (0-4 points) to a global assessment score (0-2 points) and decreased the ambiguity of the scoring. Despite this necessary alteration, we have seen negligible change to students’ scores in this area. We have also found that with the new rubric spreading the affective behaviors to individually scored items, we are receiving better feedback to drive our student counseling and coaching. This gives us the opportunity to more clearly direct our students on improving their performance in the affective domain. | Outcomes needs to be reviewed and updated. | |
| 4. Preparedness: the student consistently arrived on time with required materials and was ready to learn. | The data shows students are arriving to class prepared for the day with little to no problems. It also shows that faculty are consistent in their grading of a student’s preparedness for class. The anomaly seen in round one is felt to have been the narrow focus of the old rubric. By spreading the scoring for this outcome over three categories on the new rubric – self-motivation, accountability, and appearance/ personal hygiene, and moving from a five-point system (0-4 points) to a three-point system (0–2), allows for decreased ambiguity and lower chances of subjectiveness in grading. Giving us improved focus for our student feedback to drive counseling and coaching. Allowing for clearer direction of our student and improved performance in the affective domain. | Outcome needs to be reviewed and updated. | |
| 5. Professional appearance: the student is dressed appropriately and is neat in appearance. No hygiene issues. | The data shows that most students are arriving to class well-groomed and adhere to the uniform policy. The outcome remains a single data point but was moved from a five-point system (0-4 points) to a three-point system (0–2), allows for decreased ambiguity and lower chances of subjectiveness in grading. Giving us improved focus for our student feedback to drive counseling and coaching. Allowing for clearer direction of our student and improved performance in the affective domain. | ||
| 6. Initiative: student demonstrates interest in EMS through actions and interactions with evaluator. | The data shows that students are interacting properly and effectively showing their interest in becoming EMS professionals. Moving to evaluating this outcome using six data points – integrity, accountability, respect, self-motivation, self-confidence, and communication provided a clearer picture of a student’s overall performance on this outcome that a single point did not historically yield. Additionally, the move from a five-point system (0-4) to a three-point system (0-2) decreases ambiguity and reduces subjectiveness in grading. Giving us improved focus for our student feedback to drive counseling and coaching. This gives us the opportunity to more clearly direct our students on improving their performance in the affective domain. | Outcome needs to be reviewed and updated. | |
| 7. Conduct: Student interacts with other in a respectful and empathetic manner. Demonstrates respectability and professional ethics. | The data shows that students routinely conduct themselves with respect, empathy, and professional ethics during class and clinical rotations. As with other outcomes, the implementation of a new rubric required altering which data points were used to score each outcome. In this case, the decision was made to use a total rubric score that assessed every aspect of affective behavior to grade a student. Additionally, the alteration of the scoring system from a five-point (0-4) to a three-point (0-2) diminished the potential for ambiguity and reduced the potential for subjectivity in grading. Thereby keeping the objective lens in our affective evaluations. Ultimately, we have found that with the new rubric spreading the affective behaviors to individually scored items, we are receiving better feedback to drive our student counseling and coaching. This gives us the opportunity to more clearly direct our students on improving their performance in the affective domain. | Outcome needs to be reviewed and updated. | |
| 8. Careful Delivery of Service: Student follows policies, procedures & protocols. Uses appropriate safeguards in the performance of duties. | The data shows that most students consistently follow program policies/ procedures and conduct their care in a professional manner during class and clinical rotations. As with other outcomes, the implementation of a new rubric required altering which data points were used to score each outcome. In this case, the decision was made to move from a single data point to the use of eleven criteria – integrity, compassion, accountability, respect, empathy, self-motivation, self-confidence, communication, teamwork/diplomacy, patient advocacy, and cultural competence to grade students on this outcome. Additionally, the alteration of the scoring system from a five-point (0-4) to a three-point (0-2) diminished the potential for ambiguity and reduced the potential for subjectivity in grading. Thereby keeping the objective lens in our affective evaluations. Ultimately, we have found that with the new rubric spreading the affective behaviors to individually scored items, we are receiving better feedback to drive our student counseling and coaching. This gives us the opportunity to more clearly direct our students on improving their performance in the affective domain. | Outcome needs to be reviewed and updated. |
Describe any change in student achievement observed as part of this assessment process, and what led to those changes.
Yes, we found that by increasing the number and focus of affective evaluations, students were more self-aware of their behavior and tended to correct borderline or inappropriate behaviors before an instructor needed to step in. Additionally, the changes gave my team the data needed to focus our coaching of potentially problematic behaviors before they became a problem. Between the improved self-awareness and focused coaching, we were able to salvage students that would have historically exited from training. By retaining these students, we were able to keep them moving toward becoming well rounded EMS professionals and graduating to gain employment in industry.
Describe long-term changes in the program(s) that the assessment process led to, and what motivated those changes?
Yes, we have made a few lasting changes. We recognized that our previous affective rubric was utterly inadequate in evaluating a student’s affective performance. Therefore, we have adopted and will continue to utilize a new affective domain rubric that allows us to evaluate students on twelve specific affective traits. Giving my team a clear snapshot of the student’s current performance at any given time. Additionally, because some students behave differently in classes with different faculty, we noted that we were not getting a full portrayal of the student’s affective performance in the program. Therefore, we implemented affective evaluations into all theory courses. Finally, we increased the number of times students are evaluated each term in the program. While it may seem excessive, we found that by evaluating a student thirteen during the program, spread across the three courses a student attends, allowed us to take those snapshots and construct a clear picture of the students overall affective behavior and performance in the program.
What did you learn about the teaching and learning of "Practicing Community" in your programs?
Over the past two years, my team has learned several things regarding the universal theme, “Practicing Community” as it relates to our student’s affective performance in the EMT-Intermediate (AEMT) program. First, considering EMS professionals are given significant public trust, we found that the assessment tool we were using was woefully inadequate in evaluating a student’s true affective performance. Therefore, we adopted a new evaluation tool that allows us to focus directly on a student’s affective traits. With the implementation of the new rubric, we are assessing, tracking, and coaching students on twelve affective traits necessary in EMS professionals - integrity, compassion, accountability, respect, empathy, self-motivation, appearance and personal hygiene, self-confidence, communication, teamwork/ diplomacy, patient advocacy, and cultural competence. Next, we noted that some students tended to let their professional behavior diminish in classes where affective evaluations were not performed. Consequently, we determined the need to ensure students were evaluated in all courses and aspects of the program (theory, lab, clinical and field). This has assisted in curbing unprofessional behaviors and increased students’ performance in effective communication, accountability, and increased cultural competence. Additionally, we have learned that by streamlining the grading system for the rubric, there is less ambiguity, allowing for the evaluations to remain objective across classes and the EMT-Intermediate (AEMT) program. Finally, we learned that by evaluating a student several time per course, we were able to use those snapshots to build a portrait of the students overall affective performance in the program. Through this evaluation experience, my faculty have learned that we have the power to make positive changes, hold students accountable, and ensure that when a student graduates, we can confidently say that the student is prepared to enter the EMS industry and handle the honor of public trust.
Describe any external factors affecting the program or affecting assessment of the program.
During the past two years, we have not found any external factors that affected our program or the assessment process.