I was out of posts yesterday and want to thank people for all of their replies to my students' questions, as well as comments to other posts. You might want to skip the rant and get down to questions near the end of the this post.
I think the subject line should be "Leadership by psychologists on assessments of student learning; or lack thereof." I'd like to thank Linda, who posted all the books and articles written for and by psychologists on how to do assessment. However, my point was that we as psychologists do a great job of telling people how to do assessment but outside of a few articles that look at a micropedagogy, (a single technique for a single topic) published in Teaching of Psych, don't practice much of what we preach in all those wonderful books--at least not in terms of publication records. I think that in general, what Deb said is also true about the old/new distinction. This year our department will go through program review in preparation for reaccreditation of the college next year. I have been appointed to an assessment team that is helping departments college wide prepare assessment reports and plans and looking at goals and student learning outcomes and I have to say that the young folks just get it, and old folks want nothing to do with it. As Deb noted, they do feel insulted and do feel that they don't have to show anyone anything other than their grades, which are on record for the accreditation agencies. After all, if they are giving some proportion of each letter grade, that is evidence of teaching, isn't it? And if the students learn or don't learn, that's the students' business, isn't it? I ask those questions facetiously, as they have repeatedly been asked of me. And the comment about hearing people say that nothing ever comes of it is also right on the money. The money, of course, is a hot issue as we have had our salaries frozen but our out-of-pocket costs for health and dental insurance and even parking on campus have gone up; but the workload, in a climate of assessment has climbed. And, honestly, in the past, nothing did come of it. It was a proforma for the accreditation agencies and folks just didn't see what they could get out of it. Now, I am of the old guard, yet I find it amazing that so many people don't see the value of assessing one's performance on a regular basis, and using that to make corrections. It is H A R D to make corrections. And oftentimes, it's hard for us to see from the comments made on our own evaluations what we can do to still "teach" as we see it necessary to do, but make changes. Sometimes it takes an objective eye to help us. And psychologists are not alone in this. I am working with departments campus wide and this is a big issue, especially in the social sciences! And don't even get me started on a discussion of definitions of Academid Freedom. But physics, for example, has been going through an education reform movement. It has been continuing with assessment and reassessment for the past decade at least. And those folks are puzzled why psychologists are not at the forefront of such reform. And this is true of the old timers, not just the younger folks, maybe even more so, as they are frustrated after a career of trying to teach basic physics to students who come in with a life time (short but long enough) of naive science behind them, and unable to learn the proper principles and conceptions with standard teaching methods. You would think that we as psychologists would feel the same way. There are published studies going back to the early 1900's about students' numerous misconceptions, and a decade later, the situation is only worse, not better. Yet intro psych is probably the most popular course across colleges nationwide. How can this be? How can we not be at the forefront of conceptual change learning? Certainly the cognitive folks talk boatloads about concept formation; but almost no true "psychologists" publish empirical studies on conceptual change learning. If you do a psychinfo search you will find that this is a relatively small literature limited to educational psychologists and education programs in general. That is, teachers in elementary and secondary schools seem to care quite a bit, especially with early science education, but university psychologists don't seem to care much. For those on the outside looking in, it seems odd that psychologists don't have a huge sub-discipline devoted to this. So we may be publishing prescriptive articles and books, but not as much in the way of outcome evaluation as is coming out of other disciplines, particularly the hard sciences. OK, that's my response I couldn't post yesterday and I will try to hold off posting anything else until later in the day so I don't use up my posts. Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 [email protected] ---- Original message ---- >Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:38:53 -0400 (EDT) >From: Deborah S Briihl <[email protected]> >Subject: Re: [tips] Leadership by psychologists on assessment of student >learning >To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> > >I think that there are a few issues here. One of them is the old/new >school issue. Many people who have been in academia for a while have >really never had to do program assessment (at least at not the level >they are being asked to now). So, now, when they are asked to prove >student learning, they view it as an insult (that's why I really don't >like the term authentic assessment) or additional work (with no extra >pay or time off) where as the newer faculty have always been expected >to, so they see it as a normal part of the job. >Second - and this may relate to the old school issue - I have had >people tell me that they do assessments and nothing ever seems to come >out of all their work. It is as if "Well, we did the required >assessment for the accrediting body - now we don't have to do anything >for the next 5-10 years!!" > >Claudia Stanny wrote: > > >>Annette and Marc raise two interesting perceptions of the role of >>psychologists in the work on assessment. >> >> >> >>In some institutions, psychologists and psychology departments take a >>leadership role, modeling good assessment practices and providing >>consultation to other departments on the development of assessments and >>interpretation of findings. >> >> >> >>In other institutions, psychologists and psychology departments are >>identified as highly resistant. I attended one assessment conference in >>which I made the comment that assessment made sense to me because it >>seemed to be an application of my skills in research and cognition. The >>workshop facilitator's response was that at her institution, cognitive >>psychologists were the most difficult people to deal with because they >>were so demanding for methodological "purity" (control groups, high >>levels of reliability and validity for assessment instruments) >> >> >> >>I'm curious about the situation at your institution. >> >>Where would you place the participation of your department on this >>continuum? >> >>What do you perceive to be the drivers for why your department >>participates (or resists)? >> >> >> >>Respond directly to me off list if you prefer. ([email protected]) >> >>This may be a topic of specialized and limited interest. >> >> >> >>My biases on this issue are obvious from my current job title. J >> >>But I am curious about learning more about the rationale underlying >>faculty decisions about assessment. >> >> >> >>I'll post a summary later for interested parties. >> >> >> >>Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. >> >>Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment >> >>Associate Professor, Psychology >> >>University of West Florida >> >>Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751 >> >> >> >>Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 >> >>e-mail: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> >> >> >>CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ <http://uwf.edu/cutla/> >> >>Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm >><http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm> >> >> >> >> >>--- >>To make changes to your subscription contact: >> >>Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > >---------------------------------- >Deb > >Dr. Deborah S. Briihl >Dept. of Psychology and Counseling >Valdosta State University >229-333-5994 >[email protected] > >--- >To make changes to your subscription contact: > >Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
