B.A. History graduates will be prepared for successful careers and productive citizenship through high quality instruction in all courses.

Graduates with undergraduate degrees in History will reach their career objectives.

Teacher education students who major or minor in history will pass the TExES examination.

80% of all teacher education students who major or minor in history will pass the TExES examination.

During 2008-09, 17 of 17 (100%) history majors or minors passed the Texas Examination for Educator Standards (TExES) exam for future teachers and 9 of 9 (100%) history majors and minors passed the Social Studies TExES.

The 100% pass rate of 2008-2009 compared with the 67% pass rate of the previous year was in part a real success that resulted from our decision to offer the Practice TExES to upper division history students, and in part a misleading artifact of the state's decision to remove Post-Baccalaureate students from the published pass/fail statistics.

Post-Baccalaureate students are graduate students working on their teacher certification through the graduate school College of Education. They are students over whom content-delivering departments (in this case the History Department) have no control. As a result, according to the new State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) rules, the performance of the Post-Baccalaureate students do not count in the pass/fail statistics to which departments are accountable. Instead, the SBEC currently counts only the pass-fail rate of "completers" or those who have completed graduate or undergraduate programs and passed the TExES within a year and a half of becoming completers. In this case, only five of the Post-Baccalaureate students were "completers" and four of the five passed the TExES, a pass rate of 80%.

The History Department has made an intensive effort to offer the Practice TExES to students planning to be teachers in order to improve their scores. The History Department offered the Practice TExES to 132 students of which 98 passed and were thus allowed to take the TExES for certification.

The proposals by the History Department to use HIS 390 (Conceptualizing History Education) as a means to help students pass the TExES has not proven consistently effective. Not all future teachers enroll in the course, and many who enrolled were not future teachers and had no intention of taking the TExES. Many students avoid the course once they have passed the
Practice TExES. Of the 17 SHSU history students who completed the TExES during 2008-2009, only 4 had taken HIS 390. The passage rates of the Practice TExES within HIS 390 have
deteriorated over the past several years.

The results for students who took the Practice TExES after a semester of reviewing World and U.S. History are as follows:
Spring 2006 - 7 out of 8 students (87%) passed
Fall 2007 - 6 out of 15 students (40%) passed
Fall 2008 - 5 out of 12 students (41%) passed.

History students will have the skills necessary to enter graduate school if they desire.

At least one history undergraduate student will be admitted into a graduate or professional school each year.

At least six recent History graduates matriculated into graduate programs during the last year. These graduates included Stephanie Strong, Nicole McKinley, Larissa Wade, Scott Heath, Ed Young, and Elizabeth Jackson.

The History Department will administer the practice TExAS to students in 300-level classes at the beginning of each semester. Results will identify students struggling with TExAS criteria and allow the department to implement our intervention plan. Intervention will consist of two possible complementary approaches: first, departmental curriculum advisement will direct students into courses that will address academic deficiencies revealed in the practice TExAS exam; second, this pre-testing procedure will also identify students who do exceptionally well on the exam but who might not have otherwise considered a career in history education.

The following is a detailed explanation prepared by Caroline Crimm of the changes in findings between the 2007-08 and t2008-09 academic years. The 100% pass rate of last year compared with the 67% pass rate of the previous year was in part a real success that resulted from our decision to offer the Practice TExES to upper division history students, and in part a misleading artifact of the state's decision to remove Post-Baccalaureate students from the published pass/fail statistics.

Post-Baccalaureate students are degreed students working on their teacher certification through the Education Department graduate school. They are students over whom content-delivering departments (in this case the History Department) have no control. As a result, according to the new State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) rules, the performance of the Post-Baccalaureate students do not count in the pass/fail statistics to which departments are accountable. Instead, the SBEC currently counts only the pass-fail rate of "completers" or those who have completed graduate or undergraduate programs and passed the TExES within a year and a half of becoming completers. In this case, only five of the Post-Baccalaureate students were "completers" and four of the five passed the TExES, a pass rate of 80%.

The History Department has made an intensive effort to offer the Practice TExES to students planning to be teachers in order to improve their scores. The History Department offered the Practice TExES to 132 students of which 98 passed and were thus allowed to take the TExES for certification.

Because of the success of the Practice TExES in improving scores, in future years the History Department plans to encourage history majors and minors to take the Practice TExES as soon as possible during the course of their studies, but no later than the beginning of their Junior year. The test will be offered four times a year under the supervision of the Education Preparation Services Office under conditions and times similar to those required for the TExES.

Once students pass the Practice TExES, they will receive permission to take the TExES at their own convenience. Students who do not pass the Practice TExES will meet with members of the History Department Teacher Certification Committee (TCC) to discuss methods of remediation.

In order to increase contact with and support for our future teachers, the TCC proposes annual meetings with all majors and minors who plan to be teachers. At these meetings, the TCC will help students make plans and discuss their progress. The TCC believes that this kind of personalized face-to-face contact will improve pass rates as well as student attitudes toward teaching as a career.

The TCC committee will provide future teachers with a packet of material which will include: dates and location of the Practice TExES, courses offered by the Department which can help students overcome subject deficiencies, information on practice materials available on the Internet, packets of TAKS facts which will be required for teachers on the junior high and secondary levels, and information on HIS 390 Conceptualizing History Education for those interested in a more factual review of history
teaching methods.

The proposals by the History Department to use HIS 390 (Conceptualizing History Education) as a means to help stud

Having exceeded our original benchmark goal in this area, the History Department for 2009-2010 will raise its benchmark expectation of sending at least one history major into an advanced degree program every year. The new benchmark expectation will be to send at least two history majors into a graduate program every year.

History majors will improve their research, writing and critical thinking skills.

Students through Phi Alpha Theta and other venues will present research findings in quality, peer-reviewed non-classroom settings.

At least once every two years, an undergraduate student will make a scholarly presentation in a peer-reviewed non-classroom venue.

During 2008-09, at least 8 undergraduate students presented papers at high quality peer-reviewed scholarly gatherings outside of the classroom. The presentation venues and presenters were as follows: East Texas Historical Association, Sept 2008: Nathan Pople, Jr and Jared Gamble; Sam Houston Symposium: February 2009: Andrew Williams, Samuel Stokes, Jared Gamble, Nathan Pope Jr.; Phi Alpha Theta Consortium, April 2009: James Scott, Samuel Stokes, Mary Stringer, Neil Stutts; Southwestern Social Science Association, April 2009: Mary Stringer, Mariah Zimpfer.

Having exceeded our benchmark expectations, the History Department in 2009-2010 will raise its benchmark standard from one student presentation every other year to at least one student presentation at a scholarly meeting every year.

During the course of the semester, students enrolled in history courses will demonstrate significant improvement in their understanding of the historical content covered in their respective courses.

During the course of a semester, students enrolled in US history courses will demonstrate significant improvement in their understanding of American history.

At least 20% of students enrolled in the US surveys will be given pre- and post tests over content relevant to these courses. A statistical analysis of the results of this testing will demonstrate significant student improvement in knowledge of pertinent US history themes.

During Fall 2008, US history survey classes that included 612 HIS 163 students and 156 HIS 164 students took pre and post tests on an instrument that was developed during a US Department of Education Teaching American History Grant to measure student understanding of traditional American history. The average SHSU student demonstrated progress during the semester by scoring over 20% higher on the post test than the pre-test. A cohort of Texas Service Center Region 5 and Region 6 history teachers who attended a summer Teaching American History institute at SHSU answered about 80% of the instrument questions correctly. With the average SHSU student answering about 61% of these questions correctly on the post-test, at the end of the semester SHSU US history students performed about 77% as well on these questions as this cohort of public school history instructors.

During Spring 2009, US history survey classes that included 131 HIS 163 students (representing 26% of all enrolled HIS 163 students) and 488 HIS 164 students (representing 34% of all enrolled HIS 164 students) took pre and post tests on an instrument that was developed during a US Department of Education Teaching American History Grant to measure student understanding of traditional American history. The average SHSU student demonstrated progress during the semester by scoring about 33% higher on the post test than the pre-test. However, in one class the increase was only 2%. A cohort of Texas Service Center Region 5 and Region 6 history teachers who attended a summer Teaching American History institute at SHSU answered about 80% of the instrument questions correctly. With the average SHSU student answering about 63% of these questions correctly on the post-test, at the end of the semester SHSU US history students performed about 78% as well on these questions as this cohort of public school history instructors.

The consistency in pre and post testing scores across all sampled classes (except for one HIS 163 class during the Spring semesters) suggests a high degree of reliability with the testing instrument.

During the course of a semester, students enrolled in world history courses will demonstrate significant improvement in their understanding of world history.

At least 20% of students enrolled in the world civilization courses will be given pre- and post tests over content relevant to these courses. A statistical analysis of the results of this testing will demonstrate significant student improvement in knowledge of pertinent world history themes.

During Fall 2008, world history survey classes that included 100 HIS 265 students (representing 42% of the total number of students taking HIS 265) and 42 HIS 266 students (representing 32% of the total number of students taking HIS 266)took pre- and post tests on an instrument that was developed by the world history faculty. The test instrument is not nationally normed, but was locally constructed with the aim of monitoring change over time in basic knowledge of the major themes covered in the world history survey curriculum. The State of Texas Core Curriculum Component Area guidelines were consulted before the creation of this testing instrument. The average SHSU student demonstrated progress during the semester by scoring 22% higher on the post test than the pre-test. Specifically, HIS 265 students averaged 54% correct on the pre-test and 68% correct on the protest. Similarly, HIS 266 students averaged 48% correct on the pre-test and 55% correct on the post-test.

During Spring 2009, world history survey classes that included 166 HIS 265 students (representing 76% of the total number of students taking HIS 265) and 38 HIS 266 students (representing 22% of the total number of students taking HIS 266)took pre and post tests on an instrument that was developed by the world history faculty. The test instrument is not nationally normed, but was locally constructed with the aim of monitoring change over time in basic knowledge of the major themes covered in the world history survey curriculum. The State of Texas Core Curriculum Component Area guidelines were consulted before the creation of this testing instrument. The average SHSU student demonstrated progress during the semester by scoring about 23% higher on the post test than the pre-test. Specifically, HIS 265 students averaged 52% correct on the pre-test and 61% correct on the protest, while HIS 266 students averaged 48% correct on the pre-test and 68% correct on the post-test. Variations in pre and post test scores across classes and semesters suggest a modest degree of instrument reliability.

Since this was the first year that the pre- and post-teaching was conducted, we were not able to compare these results with previous years. The same test, however, will be used to pre and post test a sample of at least 20% of HIS 265 and HIS 266 students during the academic year 2009-2010. After these results are recorded, an assessment of the data will be conducted to determine the degree to which the department is meeting its objectives in improving student performance in world history survey courses.

Since this was the first year that the pre- and post-teaching was conducted, we were not able to compare these results with previous years. The same test, however, will be used to pre and post test a sample of at least 20% of HIS 163 and HIS 164 students during the academic year 2009-2010. After these results are recorded, an assessment of the data will be conducted to determine the degree to which the department is meeting its objectives in improving student performance in US history courses.

However, the ability to benchmark student post-test scores against the scores of high school teachers and the high degree of reliability of test scores across classes provides some evidence of the validity and reliabilty of the testing instrument and of the progress in content mastery that American history students are making during the course of the semester.

The Department of History will enhance its image and increase its public exposure.