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Just like any academic or co-curricular program on campus, the institution regularly assesses achievement of the learning outcomes that it claims in the General Studies Program. The General Studies program, including the faculty who teach within it, use the information gained from assessment to improve student learning at MSU Denver.
The ultimate goal is to make the General Studies Program assessment easy, yet meaningful for faculty, and to enhance student learning in all General Studies courses across campus. Some of our new student learning outcomes are aspirational and are going to take some brainstorming and effort to achieve. We look forward to working together as a community to take our courses to the next level.
The purpose is to learn about student learning in the General Studies program, not to focus on individual faculty, students, or even individual sections of courses. Data analysis and the conclusions drawn from the data will inform discussions around the areas where the program shines, and areas that could use some reflection, discussion, or improvement.
For example, one of the new Natural and Physical Science student learning outcomes is, “Evaluate the credibility of scientific information and interpret the impact of its use or misuse in society.” This outcome is so important, but it’s also brand new and challenging. Hypothesis: students will rate low on this SLO. Data collection and analysis may conclude that this hypothesis is true. If it is, think of the neat discussions we could have across the Natural and Physical Science faculty about how we might address this better in our wide variety of courses!
The General Studies Advisory Board has created a new approach to General Studies assessment.
Summary
2022-23 Break
2023-24 Group A Data Collection
2024-25 Group B Data Collection
2025-26 Group C data Collection
Assessment Process
Please note, the following steps are for Arts and Humanities, Social and Behavioral Science, and Natural and Physical Science categories. The remaining categories may use a different method due to the volume of students in those categories. Rubrics for all categories can be found below.
Step 1: Identify Key Assignment(s) that align with student learning outcomes in the General Studies category
- All courses undergoing re-designation addressed this in their course proposal in Curriculog under #4 and attached an example in the files.
- Training workshops will be available to help with this.
Step 2: Assign and Collect Student Work
- Faculty teach their course and scaffold the key assignment as they normally would, assign their key assignment to their students and wait for submissions to come in.
- Both digital or hard copies will work.
- Last time we collected key assignments/artifacts so that external assessors could rate the student work. For this round, it’s okay for the professor teaching the course to rate the work. This means artifacts do not need to be formally collected and given to anyone. The faculty member just needs to have it long enough to apply the assessment rubric. Remember, this process is for Arts and Humanities, Social and Behavioral Science, and Natural and Physical Science categories only.
Step 3: Assess Key Assignments by applying the category rubric
- Faculty will be asked to apply General Studies category rubrics to all students’ key assignment(s) in their course.
- Rubrics were built for growth throughout the undergraduate experience, so we are expecting General Studies students will mostly get 1’s and 2’s (introductory and developing). 0’s are assigned in cases where no evidence is provided in the artifact by the student.
- Training workshops will be available to help with this and to develop inter-rater reliability.
Develop Foundational Skills:
Discover Ideas:
Natural and Physical Science Rubric
Social and Behavioral Science Rubric
Expand Your Views:
Step 4: Report Findings to General Studies Program by handing in an Excel file or Word document
- Add up how many students achieved a 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the rubric and report these totals in the spreadsheet or document.
- Add any comments you have. You might reflect on anything related to the data collection. Perhaps you have a comment about patterns you found with the students, reasons why students landed where they did, the ability of the assignment to be used against this rubric, or comments on the rubric are welcome.
- Email this document to the Academic Effectiveness Data Manager, Bev Reimer: [email protected].
Please choose your category in either EXCEL or WORD format. Each data collection file has room for Global Diversity in addition to the main category where appropriate.
Once complete, these forms can be emailed to Bev Andes, Academic Effectiveness Data Manager at [email protected].
Files:
Arts and Humanities Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Arts and Humanities Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Historical Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Historical Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Natural and Physical Science Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Natural and Physical Science Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Oral Communication Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Oral Communication Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Quantitative Literacy Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Quantitative Literacy Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Social and Behavioral Science Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Social and Behavioral Science Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Written Communication Data Collection Form EXCEL.xlsx
Written Communication Data Collection Form WORD.docx
Updated July 22, 2021
Step 5: Data Analysis and Sharing of Findings
- The General Studies Program leads will aggregate and analyze the data.
- Conclusions will be shared with faculty teaching in General Studies and reports will also be shared with leadership and accrediting bodies.
Faculty may be asked to rate artifacts from a General Studies course to measure student learning as part of the assessment process. Once data is reported to the Office of Academic Effectiveness, the only people with access to individual course section data will be the Academic Effectiveness Data Manager, the AVP of Academic Effectiveness, and the Director of General Studies. All data will be stored in a secure permission-based system (as recommended by ITS professionals). Both disaggregated and aggregated data will be stored indefinitely in order to fulfil program assessment or accreditation reporting requirements. All data shared by the Academic Effectiveness Data Manager, the AVP of Academic Effectiveness, or the Director of General Studies will be aggregated to preserve both student and faculty anonymity. The following people will not have access to individual course section data: faculty not teaching the course section, chairs, other directors, associate deans, deans, the Provost, the President, the Board of Trustees, or anyone involved in performance evaluation and retention, tenure, and promotion decisions.
- General Studies assessment data may be used to improve student learning in a variety of ways, such as:
- Aggregated data will be used to reflect on how the General Studies program as a whole is serving students. This type of data will be reported to accrediting bodies.
- Conclusions drawn from aggregated data will be used to prompt faculty reflections on student learning and discussions within the General Studies Categories. This type of data by General Studies category will also be reported to accrediting bodies.
- Academic programs or departments may use data to show growth from General Studies through the major. They may use this data in their program assessment, review, and accreditation. If the sample size is large enough to not enable identifying individuals, reports can be used to focus on learning in individual courses. These reports will be run by the Office of Academic Effectiveness when asked, but only reports that maintain faculty and student anonymity will be shared with programs.
- If data is collected in a way that identifies the students, data may be disaggregated by student demographic or subgroup, depending on population size, with the intention of informing student learning, while preserving individual student anonymity.
General Studies assessment data shall not be used in any way that is either punitive or rewarding for individual faculty. In contrast to Student Rating of Instruction (SRI) scores, General Studies assessment data shall not be directly used in tenure/promotion materials. Although Faculty will know how their students performed as well as what the aggregated data looks like, they shall not discuss ratings of their sections in any tenure/promotion materials. In these materials, faculty are encouraged to reflect on how they implemented teaching strategies in their courses to improve student learning, but they shall not compare their numbers to any aggregate numbers made available. If such information is included, it shall be ignored at every level of review. The accidental inclusion of numbers by faculty member will have no repercussions. If the Director of General Studies is also faculty, they shall recuse themselves from any Retention, Tenure, Promotion (RTP) or post-tenure review (PTR) committees.
Procedure
1. Faculty assess student learning by applying a rubric to key assignment(s) submitted by students.
2. The data is reported to and secured by the Data Manager in the Office of Academic Effectiveness.
3. The Data Manager, AVP of Academic Effectiveness, or the Director of General Studies run reports to aggregate the data and analyze the data.
4. Faculty are invited to reflect on the aggregated data by category and implement any pedagogical changes they’d like before collecting more data.
5. When appropriate, aggregated data is reported to accrediting bodies. If asked, the Data Manager, with the help of others in the Office of Academic Effectiveness, may create reports for individual programs or courses, as long as they can maintain faculty and student anonymity.
Step 6: Discussion and Reflection on findings to enhance student learning in the General Studies Program
- General Studies program leads will reach out to faculty teaching in the program to discuss findings and reflect on things that went well and areas that need more attention.
Faculty teaching the courses selected for General Studies data collection will be invited to training workshops to help them choose their key assignment(s) (Workshop #1), develop inter-rater reliability by practicing with the rubric, and familiarize faculty with how to collect and report data (Workshop #2), then lastly, a reflection workshop (Workshop #3). Faculty will be paid for workshops and assessment.
Contact the Director of General Studies
Mailing Address:
Metropolitan State University of Denver
General Studies Program
Campus Box 27
P.O. Box 173362
Denver, CO 80217-3362