Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2019-2020 Level: Undergraduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Major [UG] / Program [Grad]
Program Name: Sociology BA (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
First, during the fall term, the Assessment Committee distributed to all instructors of Sociology courses (a) alist of the names of a randomly-selected 25% sample of Sociology majors enrolled in their course(s), and (b) arubric. The rubric is used to assess two of the eight general core formal learning outcomes. Instructors appliedthe rubric to a 5-page paper or essay exam question from each student in the sample.
Second, in the Spring semester, the Assessment Committee conducted a brief, anonymous online survey of allmajors’ perceptions of the progress of their skills and abilities in relation to critical skills and thinking, as wellas research skills. This year, all Sociology majors received an email invitation to take the online survey. Fifty-one of the Sociology majors responded. Responses from this year’s assessment are attached as Appendix A.
In addition, the Director of Undergraduate Studies maintains a list of student awards received, publications resulting from student research, undergraduate placements in doctoral programs, and graduate placements in employment.
Review Process:
The Assessment Committee consists of two full-time faculty members, who also work with the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The Assessment Committee is responsible for (a) creation of the annual student survey, (b) maintenance of the list of student achievements, (c) creation of the rubric for student work, (d) data collection, compilation, and analysis, (e) provision of summary data and recommended actions to the full faculty, and (f) communication with administration, including annual reports to the Dean of Arts & Sciences.
Annually at the department’s spring retreat, the full faculty discusses the Assessment Committee’s internal report and decides upon programmatic changes.
Resulting Program Changes:
Instructor evaluation of student paper and exams demonstrated that there is room for improvement in students’ writing. Only for 42% of papers and exams did the course instructors unequivocally answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Is the paper well written?’, with another 47.4% indicating that the paper was generally well-written, but with a few errors. In 10.5% of cases, there were “lots of errors.” Similarly, in the comments section of our survey, some majors made similar observations: “I would like to see the Sociology Department at BC teach majors how to write sociology papers better than it does.” Based on that, next academic year, the Undergraduate Studies Committee will take up discussion of the ways the Department might improve students’ writing skills. This may include more consistently and proactively referring our students to different offices and resources that BC already has, with syllabi providing information on these resources. Another idea is to encourage instructors to assign multiple drafts and create separate deadlines for subsections of larger writing assignments so that the students get more feedback from the instructors and a chance to rewrite based on that feedback.
In addition, our survey of majors shows that a sizeable minority of students struggle with statistics — among those who have taken a statistics course, 30.9% report problems with interpreting p-values, 33.3% report problems with interpreting two-way tables and statistical significance, and 38.1% report insufficient skills in using statistical software to analyze data. Last year, the Undergraduate Studies Committee discussed some ways the Department might reinforce statistics knowledge after students have completed this course, but we have yet to implement any changes based on these discussions. In addition to placing more emphasis on those aspects of statistical training in our required undergraduate statistics course, the department plans to encourage faculty to use more quantitative data in their classes and encourage students to analyze them with the skills they already have. Advisors should also remind advisees that they are welcome to take graduate level statistics classes if they are interested in moving forward with their training in that area.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
Instructor evaluation of student paper and exams demonstrated that there is room for improvement in students’ writing. Only for 42% of papers and exams did the course instructors unequivocally answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Is the paper well written?’, with another 47.4% indicating that the paper was generally well-written, but with a few errors. In 10.5% of cases, there were “lots of errors.” Similarly, in the comments section of our survey, some majors made similar observations: “I would like to see the Sociology Department at BC teach majors how to write sociology papers better than it does.” Based on that, next academic year, the Undergraduate Studies Committee will take up discussion of the ways the Department might improve students’ writing skills. This may include more consistently and proactively referring our students to different offices and resources that BC already has, with syllabi providing information on these resources. Another idea is to encourage instructors to assign multiple drafts and create separate deadlines for subsections of larger writing assignments so that the students get more feedback from the instructors and a chance to rewrite based on that feedback.
In addition, our survey of majors shows that a sizeable minority of students struggle with statistics — among those who have taken a statistics course, 30.9% report problems with interpreting p-values, 33.3% report problems with interpreting two-way tables and statistical significance, and 38.1% report insufficient skills in using statistical software to analyze data. Last year, the Undergraduate Studies Committee discussed some ways the Department might reinforce statistics knowledge after students have completed this course, but we have yet to implement any changes based on these discussions. In addition to placing more emphasis on those aspects of statistical training in our required undergraduate statistics course, the department plans to encourage faculty to use more quantitative data in their classes and encourage students to analyze them with the skills they already have. Advisors should also remind advisees that they are welcome to take graduate level statistics classes if they are interested in moving forward with their training in that area.
Attachments (if available)