Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2020-2021 Level: Undergraduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Major [UG] / Program [Grad]
Program Name: Romance Languages BA (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
(A) Indirect Evidence: an online multiple-choice Qualtrics questionnaire is sent to all majors during the last month of their senior year, soliciting their opinion of how well each of the specific Learning Outcomes has been achieved. Opportunity is given there as well for making any recommendations for improving the program.
(B) Direct Evidence: During their senior year, in each of their courses, majors write a final paper, which represents a substantive piece of analytic prose for purposes of assessment, such as the samples collected for this exercise. Each section gathers and analyzes its data, after which department-wide majors are collectively assessed at a plenary FT faculty meeting. In our assessment this year, we chose to focus on the following Learning Outcome: ” Demonstrate familiarity with literary genres and critical terminology.”
Review Process:
The evidence is interpreted by the entire body of full-time professors in the department, first beginning with the evaluations within each language section group (French, Hispanic Studies, Italian) during the second half of April. In May we proceed to a department-wide meeting at which all FT professors are present and participate actively. At this time, the interpretation of the assessment results and the recommendations for program changed that were first formulated by each language section are in turn reviewed by whole body of professors, who refine or re-elaborate (in terms of the collective experience of the dept.) the analysis and interpretation of the results as necessary. Overseeing the entire process from beginning to end are the Director of Undergraduate Studies and the Department Chair.
Resulting Program Changes:
Results of 2021 Assessment Process:
With respect to this year’s assessment, all direct evidence consistently affirms that all students realized the designated Learning Outcome (“Demonstrate familiarity with literary genres and critical terminology”). Professors evaluated students’ performance in fourth-year classes, on the basis of various assigned work, including tests, research papers and exams. As far as the online survey is concerned, since in any given year we do not have a large number of RLL majors — our year total across all 4 years and all 3 language sections is on the average circa 45 — we did not have a critical mass of completed surveys upon which to base secure conclusions. The RLL Department only had 9 majors in the Class of 2021 and of that number of graduating seniors only 6 completed surveys. However, for what it is worth, all of the 6 responded that they either “strongly agreed” or “mildly agreed” that this Learning Outcome had been achieved.
Recent Curricular Changes Based on 2020 Assessment Results:
Last year’s positive results mandated no curricular changes. However, we did cite one small problem (“One issue that did come up with regard to student written work was the inability of not a few students to identify Internet web sites that were academically acceptable as creditable sources of information for course essays. More detailed, special instruction will be given henceforth.”) and work more diligently to eliminate it; our labors appear to have paid off.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
Results of 2021 Assessment Process:
With respect to this year’s assessment, all direct evidence consistently affirms that all students realized the designated Learning Outcome (“Demonstrate familiarity with literary genres and critical terminology”). Professors evaluated students’ performance in fourth-year classes, on the basis of various assigned work, including tests, research papers and exams. As far as the online survey is concerned, since in any given year we do not have a large number of RLL majors — our year total across all 4 years and all 3 language sections is on the average circa 45 — we did not have a critical mass of completed surveys upon which to base secure conclusions. The RLL Department only had 9 majors in the Class of 2021 and of that number of graduating seniors only 6 completed surveys. However, for what it is worth, all of the 6 responded that they either “strongly agreed” or “mildly agreed” that this Learning Outcome had been achieved.
Recent Curricular Changes Based on 2020 Assessment Results:
Last year’s positive results mandated no curricular changes. However, we did cite one small problem (“One issue that did come up with regard to student written work was the inability of not a few students to identify Internet web sites that were academically acceptable as creditable sources of information for course essays. More detailed, special instruction will be given henceforth.”) and work more diligently to eliminate it; our labors appear to have paid off.
Attachments (if available)