Assessment of Course-Level Learning Objectives in Psychology Linda Petroff, PhD

Assessment of Course-Level Learning Outcomes in Psychology


Agenda• Goals• Plan • Application • Options• What we have learned• Future Plans• Conclusions


Goals• Unite three campuses to work as one college with five full-time psychology faculty.• Determine a college-wide assessment method for student outcomes for Introduction to Psychology students.


Plan• Identify the major goals of our Introduction to Psychology course. After much discussion, we determined two major goals: 1. Increase knowledge of psychological scientific principles. 2. Improve critical thinking skills.


Application• Together, we wrote and agreed upon 2 essay questions that would be given to every Introduction to Psychology student college-wide for one year including: face-to-face students, online students, learning center students, students taught by full-time faculty and students taught by adjuncts.


• These essays could be administered anytime throughout the semester.

• Our goal was that 70% of the students would be able to answer both questions at a satisfactory level.

• We agreed to use only those students that completed the course.


Two Essay Questions To evaluate knowledge of psychological science:1. Identify and describe 4 perspectives of psychology. Then discuss how each perspective could be applied to a research study.


2. Evaluate critical thinking skills:• Your friends are about to become parents. They have been reading about the styles of parenting and ask you for recommendations. What style of parenting would you recommend and why? Compare and contrast parenting styles and behavioral outcomes in the children in your presentation.


• These questions were used as essay questions on final exams on separate pages.

• Each student identified their answers with the name of their campus and their student I.D. number. No names were included.


• We meet as a group twice a year for assessment purposes. Each faculty member brings their completed essay questions. We randomly select 30 essays, 10 from each campus. Each instructor evaluates 6 essays that included both questions for a total of 12 essay questions. Instructors do not evaluate the essays from their campus.


• Rubric used to evaluate essay questions:• Scale of 1 – 4 1 - failing, 2 - minimal performance, 3 - satisfactory, 4 - excellent• Organization of presentation• Accuracy of information • Thoroughness of response• Complete sentences, correct punctuation,

accurate spelling


• We average the scores for each question.

• We compare the grades with our goals and determine if we met our goals or if we did not meet the goals.

• If we didn’t we discuss possible reasons why and determine what we can improve for next year.


Options• We may choose to evaluate another course and identify and agree on new questions. • We may formulate new questions and evaluate the same course.• We write our assessment report for the college internal accreditation committee and they review and critique our results and future plan.


What we have learned• Cooperation• Communication with all faculty, including adjuncts• Improved teaching skills with focus on objectives


Future Plans • Compare scores of online, face-to-face, and learning center students.• Formulate essay questions for other psychology courses.• Continue to explore other methods for evaluation of student outcomes in psychology.


Conclusions• The assessment provided faculty with insight into what the students are learning and remembering. • We needed a reasonable tool that each person could utilize.


• We worked together and each full-time person had input into the plan and execution.

• It established and maintained better communication with adjuncts


Documents

Assessment of Course-Level Learning Objectives in Psychology Linda Petroff, PhD