MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Location: file:///C:/AB59C635/ContempIssuesReport2005.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Report of the Social Science Assessment Committee for Goals of Gener= al Education: Area IV

Report of the Social Science Assessment Committe= e for Goals of General Education: Area IV.  Observations and Recommendations from the 2004-2005 Academic Year

 

The Committee met July 12, 2005 to review the data gathered from departmental assessments from summer-fall 2004 and spring 2005. 

 

Present were: Tim Crimmins, Chair (History), Dave Camp (Criminal Justice), Don Reitzes (Sociology), Kim Darnell (Psychology), Mich= ael Smith (Political Science), Truman Hartshorn (Anthropology and Geography), a= nd Shelby Frost (Economics).

 

The committee has the following documents for their consideration: Social Science Assessment Reports—Summer 2004, Fall 20= 04, and Spring 2005; an analysis of grade distribution by social science course= for fall 2005; the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement for freshmen and seniors, comparing 2001 and 2003 and comparing GSU students wi= th other research universities and the Urban Thirteen universities; a breakdow= n of social science courses by size that indicated a slight majority of social science students are taught in large sections of 100+ and that the remainder are taught in classes in the 40-50 range.

 

In the course of the deliberations the committee devel= oped the following observations and recommendations for Goals of General Education--Area IV.

 

  1.   The committee though= t that great progress had been made in developing questions for use on both objective and subjective examinations and that the results indicated t= hat students were demonstrating the abilities delineated in the goals of A= rea IV. 
  2.   (The committee believes that = the summer stipend be continued for the summer of 2006 to help facilitate the completion of this important work of assessment.)
  3.   There is a rela= tively large percentage of grades in the A and B range, with relatively fewer grades in the C and D ranges.  In every course but two (Econ&= nbsp; 2106 and 2107) there are more than 50% of the grades in the A-B range.  The lowest percen= tage is 33% and the highest is 72%.  The committee recommended that the chairs of the social science departments meet to discuss grade distribution when they assume responsibility of assessing the Goals of General Education for Area IV= .
  4.   Several of the departments ha= ve gotten WAC grants to provide an opportunity in these sections for stud= ent writing assignments.  Sev= eral of the courses use WebCT for weekly posting assignments, which give students the opportunity of developing their writing skills.  The committee recommended tha= t the Committee on General Education discuss ways in which WAC funds could be directed to the large sections of social science courses as a way of increasing student writing in core courses.