The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will graduate general Family and Consumer Sciences majors who perform well in employment positions within the field.
Objective
Demonstration Of Applied Professional Competence
Students graduating from the general family and consumer sciences program will demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary for entry-level positions as family and consumer sciences professionals.
Indicator
Employer/Suprvisor Evaluation
The supervisor evaluation form for family and consumer sciences interns evaluates three skill areas (personal skills, interpersonal skills, and professional characteristics including appropriate use of knowledge from the program content). Both questions from this form used as indicators are essentially overall supervisor ratings of the intern. One of them rates the interns on a Likert-type scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest rating. The other is a "yes-no" indicator of whether the employer would hire the intern in the company for an entry-level management position. Internship is a requirement for degree completion in this program, so all family and consumer sciences students are evaluated in this way. The instrument, which includes the supervisor rating of the intern that will be extracted and reported, was developed by the department faculty as a whole. Instruments used by other family and consumer sciences colleges and departments were reviewed in the development of the instrument. The attached instrument was designed to be generic for all programs in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences that require this type of internship and is published in the Internship Handbook, which serves as the textbook for the internship courses (FCS 469). The other programs that use this same form are interior design, food service management, and fashion merchandising.
Criterion
80% Of Students Rated At Least 3.5 And 80% Would Hire If Possible
80% of business supervisors of interns will give the intern a rating of 3.5 or higher on a 5.0 scale and 80% of business supervisors will indicate that they would hire the intern given the availability of a suitable entry-level management position in the company.
Finding
Employer/Supervisor Evaluation Results
Employer evaluation ratings were available on 11 of the 13 students who earned the BS in Family and Consumer Sciences from December 2009 - May 2010. All but one of the 11 (10 out of 11) business/professional supervisors rated the interns with a score of 3.5 or higher on a 5-point scale (90.9%). Data on whether business/professional supervisors would hire the interns were available on 8 of the 13 students who earned the BS in Family and Consumer Sciences from December 2009 - May 2010. Seven supervisors (87.5%) indicated that they would hire the intern given the availability of a suitable, entry-level management position within the company.
Weaknesses reported included: poor punctuality, request for personal leave, cell phone use, time management etc. Although we believe we repeatedly address professional characteristics, it is obviously an area in which we need to stress them even more strongly.
Action
Department Response To Employer/Supervisor Responses
The findings associated with this goal indicate that family and consumer sciences interns going into the job market are well-prepared and deemed worthy of employment by their supervisors in the industry and related professions. However, there is always room for improvement. One improvement needed is for faculty to do a more complete job of collecting data on this group of graduates. Also, internship supervisors from SHSU will strive to uncover ways in which the program can be improved through extended conversation with business supervisors.
Finally, although we believe we constantly address professional behavior, obviously we need to stress it even more to address the comments received from supervisors.
Goal
Student Knowledge Of Content Area
The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will graduate General Family and Consumer Sciences majors who have an in-depth knowledge of the content areas of the major.
Objective
Knowledge And Skills
Students graduating from the family and consumer sciences program will demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary for entry-level positions in the field.
Indicator
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
The Exit Survey for food family and consumer sciences majors includes multiple-choice and short-answer sections that test retention of course material; it is graded on a pass/fail basis. (Each program area has multiple-choice, short answer, and other questions that are specific to that program content.) To develop this instrument, faculty in the content area reviewed course and program objectives and chose questions from exams that reflected important concepts that students should retain. The test is used repetitively and the scoring is consistent. For security reasons, the "test" portion (multiple-choice questions, short essay questions, and case study) is not attached. However, this document is available in the chair's office.
Criterion
Knowledge And Skills
At least 80% of students who complete the family and consumer sciences program's Exit Survey will score a grade of Low Pass, Pass or High Pass on the content portions of the exam.
Finding
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
Of the 13 students who graduated from this program from December 2009 - May 2010, data were available on 7 of them. Of the 7, 100% scored "Pass" or "High Pass" on the content portion of the Exit Survey.
Students tend to do better on the essay portion of test than the multiple-choice items. The skills needed for these different testing formats vary so that students do not appear to have the deep learning required eliminate answers on a multiple-choice format.
Action
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
The finding shows that this goal was met for those students on whom data were available. The rubric will be re-visited to determine whether the "Pass" score is set at too low a level. Faculty in the department may considering adjusting the "Pass" score so that a higher score would be required to achieve a "Pass."
We will be working to incoporate more active learning as well as multiple-choice test-taking skills to address poor multiple choice item responses.
Goal
Computer Literacy
The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will graduate students who have performed satisfactorily in the area of computer literacy through computer-based assignments in courses that are required of all FCS majors.
Objective
Computer Literacy
Students will meet university requirements for computer literacy through assignments in two courses that are required of all undergraduate majors in the department. When it was decided to eliminate the requirement of a basic computer literacy course as part of the undergraduate core at SHSU, faculty in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences decided that, to assure competency in this area, students would be required to complete specific assignments in FCS 268 (a written assignment requiring use of a word-processing program and a budget assignment requiring the use of a spreadsheet) and FCS 462 (a presentation using PowerPoint). Satisfactory completion of these three assignments will indicate achievement of basic computer literacy skills that students are projected to need as they graduate from FCS programs and enter the world of work.
Indicator
Computer Literacy
Students who graduate from undergraduate programs in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will satisfactorily complete three assignments in courses required of all undergraduate majors in the department: a word-processed assignment and a budget prepared using a spreadsheet in FCS 268 Consumer Education and a presentation involving use of PowerPoint in FCS 462 Presentation Techniques.
Criterion
Computer Literacy
90% of family and consumer sciences majors who take the courses FCS 268 and FCS 462 during the 2009-2010 academic year will score 3 or better on a 5-point scale with 5 being the highest score and 1 being the lowest score on the three assignments that are required to meet this computer literacy competency. Examples of assignment sheets for these three assignments and rubrics for grading them are attached.
Finding
Computer Literacy
This set of data was difficult to collect and was collected on all of the undergraduates from the department who took the department's two foundation courses, FCS 268 and FCS 462, a requirement of all undergraduate students in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. In FCS 268, undergraduate students complete an assignment using an Excel spreadsheet to organize information related to a monthly budget analysis. 80.6% of students enrolled in FCS 268 met the rating of 3 or better on a 5-point scale. In FCS 462 undergraduate students complete several writing assignments that use a word-processed format and develop three visual presentations using a PowerPoint format. The writing assignments require students to use titles, page layouts, justifications, appropriate fonts, spacing, spell-check, bullets, bolding of fonts, italics, and underlining. 100% of students met the rating of 3 or better on word-processed assignments. The PowerPoint assignments require the students to design the background; use text, illustration and clip art; and incorporate animation. Students also must be able to present the PowerPoint assignment in class to an audience of their peers. 89.8% of students met the rating of 3 or better on a 5-point scale.
Scores indicate significant weakness in managing budgets via database, and PowerPoint presentations are in need of a few modifications. However, word-processing instruction and performance appear adequate.
Action
Computer Literacy
This goal was not met in its entirety, although over 80% of all undergraduate students in the two courses during the 2009-2010 academic year were successful in the areas that impact computer literacy competency. At least some of the problem was seen in the collection of the data. Beginning with the Summer I 2010 session, the department chair will work with those teaching FCS 268 and FCS 462 to verify that data are collected in a way that they can be easily sorted to determine whether the computer literacy requirement is met for each individual program and at the level set by the criterion.
We will be working on ways to improve database management and PowerPoint presentations.