Dear Tipsters,
I want to begin by thanking a number of you for responding to my inquiry
regarding outcome
assessment in psychology undergraduate programs. Specifically, I am indebted
to Luke Dalfume,
Marc Turner, Robert Herdegen, Daniel Kruger, and especially Miriam Joseph.
Miriam was nice
enough to forward the responses that she collected from a similar question
that she posed to the
listserve last semester.
Luke Dalfiume indicated that his department uses the ETS exam in Psychology.
The test is given
to all seniors at the end of the regular school year (4th term). He noted
that the test "is broken
down into various subject categories, and gives you a sense of how your
students do compared to
students at other schools."
Bob Herdegen from Hampden-Sydney College offered an alternative strategy for
outcome
assessment. Although he noted that his department is attacking this issue
from a number of
direction, his email emphasized primary trait analysis. He wrote, "One thing
that we're working
on is primary trait analysis (PTA) of the required senior theses. PTA is
pretty simple to do, and
can be useful for both grading and for assessment. A good introduction to it
can be found in
_Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment_, by Barbara Walvoord
and Virginia
Anderson (Josey-Bass, 1998). The thesis is the culmination of a year-long
research project, which
we believe requires the student to bring to bear much of the knowledge and
many of the skills
acquired in the student's coursework in psych. We believe that we can judge
how well we are
doing in accomplishing a number of our goals by careful analysis of the
students' theses, and PTA
seems like a good tool for doing this."
Daniel Kruger of Loyola Univ. was nice enough to send me a copy of a paper
presentation on "A
skill-experience inventory for undergraduate psychology majors" and the
associated scale that he
did with Eugene Zechmeister. He indicated that he would be happy to send
this material to
anyone interested. You can contact him directly at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mike Scoles from University of Central Arkansas offered the following website:
http://www.uca.edu/assess/aslibrar.htm
while Marc Turner sent me the website for the recently started Center for
Academic Assessment
at Southwest Texas State University.
http://www.soci.swt.edu/swtcaa.htm
Marc indicated that his institution was trying "to put all of the various
assessment measures used
around campus on-line" and have links to other relevant websites.
Miriam Joseph from St. Louis University forwarded this email from Al Cone who
is at Jamestown
College
I've been using the ACAT (Area Concentration Achievement Tests) for 12 years
and am more
than happy with it. For me it has the advantage of providing normed scores
for the sub-areas one
selects as well as correlations between performance and having taken or not
taken a list of courses
the student identifies as ones s/he has taken. For our assessment purposes
this is most desirable.
See http://pacat.apsu.edu/pacat/ for more information about the ACAT.
Finally, Miriam sent me a list of websites that may be relevant for outcome
assessment
Websites:
http://ericae.net/intbod.stm
ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment & Evaluation on the Internet
*******
http://www.ga.unc.edu/UNCGA/assesment/resources.html
U of N. Carolina's web site on Internet Resources for Higher Education
Outcomes Assessment
*******
http://www.aahe.org/
AAHE: The American Association for Higher Education
*******
http://www.aahe.org/assessment/1999/1999_intro.htm
1999 Assessment Conference
*******
http://www.jbp.com/JBJournals/au.html
Assessment Update
*******
http://phil.winona.msus.edu/atools/deptplanshome.htm
Department Level Assessment Plans
*******
http://ias.ga.unc.edu/~eis/aahe98/
WWW Resources for Assessment
*******
http://nces.ed.gov/npec/d&aPreface.html
Comprehensive review of critical thinking assessment techniques.
*******
http://www.tei.uq.edu.au/tei/criterion-assess.html
Criterion Referenced Assessment -- Including Examples on the Web The Teaching
and
Educational Development Institute at The University of Queensland
*******
http://www.intered.com/archives.html
Phoenix Institute - Adult Assessment Forum Archives
*******
http://www.intered.com/asap.htm
Phoenix Institute - Adult Student Assessment Project
*******
http://www.intered.com/home.html
InterEd - Information for Better Assessment and Better Education
*******
http://web.indstate.edu/ctl/styles/ls1.html
Indiana State University, Center on Teaching and Learning - Resources on
Learning Styles
*******
http://web.indstate.edu/ctl/styles/tstyle.html
Indiana State University, Center on Teaching and Learning - Resources on
Teaching Styles and
Internet Teaching
*******
http://www.twu.edu/hs/hs/hs5483/MULTICUL.htm
Multicultural Assessment
*******
http://www.umass.edu/cft/camplink2.html
Links to on-line resources for teaching and learning excellence, and
professional organizations.
*******
Examples of approaches to assessment developed by other institutions:
http://www.rwc.uc.edu/phillips/Assessment/AcadAssess.html
Academic Assessment Home Page for Raymond Walters College
*******
http://www.sinclair.edu/departments/gened/tools.htm#check
Sinclair Community College, Dayton, Ohio - General Education Assessment Page
*******
http://ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu/~sypherh/bc/onctr.html
Parkland College Assessment Plan
*******
Once again, thank you to all.
Dave
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------
David B. Sugarman, PhD. (401) 456-8611
Department of Psychology
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rhode Island College
or
600 Mt. Pleasant Ave.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Providence, RI 02908
