Develop students' analytic, writing, speaking, and professional skills
Objective
Develop Students' Skills
Throughout their enrollment, students must complete extensive writing assignments that require the following abilities: analyze scholarly writing, interpret empirical data, understand argumentation, express well thought out opinions, and write clearly and correctly.
Indicator
Faculty Committee Review Of POL 379 Research And Writing Papers
Faculty members teaching POL 379 Research and Writing will randomly select 5 papers from each course. All papers will be reviewed by the faculty members who teaching Research and Writing. Faculty members will evaluate the papers using a grading rubric designed and agreed said faculty. Papers will be scored on a scale of 1 - 5 with 5 being the highest.
Criterion
Develop Students' Skills
We expect that: (1) Faculty scores will not vary in the vast majority of cases and when there is a difference in scores the difference will not be greater than a single point. If faculty scores do differ beyond a single point, faculty will be asked to review the grading rubric and discuss its application. (2) At least 70% of the papers will score a 3 or above. (3) Faculty members teaching POL 379 will expand their syllabi section addressing theory development and hypothesis testing compared to 2008-2009 where the findings indicated that although scores were consistently over a 3, students were losing a point related to theory and hypotheses development. (4) By the end of 2009-2010 we will have completed and assessed the pilot program consisting of a writing assignment that will require multiple drafts. We expect that the changes made in (3) and (4) will result in improvements in this area of the rubric.
Finding
Develop Students' Skills
Our findings indicate: (1) Faculty scores differed in only 4 of the 15 papers sampled and where these differed, it was not by more than one point. (2) 100% of the papers were scored at 3 or better, far exceeding our expectations. (3) The increase in emphasis on theory and hypothesis development was one reason for the increase in scoring from the previous year. More attention was given to this skill and it did indeed increase student knowledge. The POL 379 faculty met and discussed additional methods of improving theory and hypothesis development including specific assignments and exercises. (4) Another factor is the results of the pilot program to incorporate more draft writing in the POL 379. Faculty reported that students turned in higher quality products that required turning in drafts as part of the assignment.
Additionally, while students were encouraged to utilize the Writing Center, the faculty found that they need to find better incentives for students to go to the center.
Action
Develop Students' Skills
Papers from the POL 379 Research and Writing course will continue to be scored on a scale of 1-5. In an effort to better assess the papers, the faculty teaching POL 379 will review the rubric.
The success of the pilot program requiring multiple drafts of an assignment will be expanded to include all POL 379 courses.
The addition of POL 374 as part of the methods component for majors provides another opportunity to measure students' skills. As such, it will be added to this objective and the indicator for 2010-2011 will be updated to "Faculty Committee Review of POL 379 Research and Writing Papers and POL 374 Statistics Papers."
Goal
Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
Build students' knowledge of government and politics, citizenship skills, and civic engagement
Objective
Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
Throughout their enrollment, students will explore the following themes in a national and international context: the structure and operation of various forms of government, political philosophies, informal and formal political organizations and actors, public policies, and political behavior
Indicator
Faculty Committee Review Of Upper Division Course Papers
Each field of study will be assigned a team of 2 faculty members who have expertise in the particular field. Each semester the individual teams will receive and review 5 randomly selected papers from an upper division course in their respective fields. Faculty members from each subfield will evaluate the papers using a grading rubric designed and agreed upon by faculty in each subfield. Papers will be scored on a scale of 1 - 5 with 5 being the highest.
Criterion
Development Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
We expect that: (1) Faculty scores will not vary in the vast majority of cases and when there is a difference in scores the difference will not be greater than a single point. If faculty scores do differ beyond a single point, faculty will be asked to review the grading rubric and discuss its application. (2) At least 70% of the papers will score a 3 or above. . However, the findings of the 2008-2009 analysis indicated that although scores were consistently over a 3, students were losing a point related to analytical and theoretical development.(3) By the end of 2009-2010 we will have completed and assessed the pilot program consisting of a writing assignment that will require multiple drafts. We expect that the changes made as a result of the pilot program will result in improvements in this area of the rubric.
Finding
Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
Faculty from each subfield (American, Public Administration, Theory and Methods, IR/CP) reviewed 5 randomly selected papers from the upper-division courses. The papers were scored on a 5 point rubric. The findings indicate: (1) The scores varied in 22 of the 84 cases (26%) and in the 22 cases, the deviation was not more than one point. (2) 79.76% of the papers scored above a 3 exceeding our expectation of 70%. The faculty did find that one rubric for the different types of upper-division courses was not adequately capturing the different types of assignments and recommends reviewing the rubric. (3) The implentation of multiple drafts is helping to improve the overall quality of the papers.
An additional finding is that students consistently have difficulty with proper citations and issues with plagiarism. The faculty recommend including additional instruction in these areas.
Action
Develop Students' Knowledge Of Government And Politics
(1) The faculty in each subfield with develop specific rubrics. (2) The pilot program of requiring at least one draft will be extended to include all upper-division classes where a research paper is required. This will help improve the students' skills in several ways. First, it will assist with theory development and analytical skills that are required to master the knowledge in each class. Second, it will provide the students' with sufficient feedback to master the ability to cite material properly. (3) The faculty will continue to encourage students to utilize the Writing Center.
Goal
Develop Students' Professional Experience
Increase students' exposure to the professional world.
Objective
Develop Students' Professional Experience
We will increase students' exposure to the professional world.
Indicator
Internships And Intern/Supervisor Surveys
The department offers a POL 495 Directed Studies and Internship course. We will focus on the number and quality of internships we offer each year as well as internships' performances. This performance will be twofold: first, from the students' perspective and second, from the supervisors' perspective.
All interns will be required to complete a survey. We will use item 23 (Overall, I enjoyed my internship experience) and item 24 (Overall, this internship contributed to intern's career objectives) as indicators of the quality of our internships. Items are measured on a five point likert scale (strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, strongly disagree).
All supervisors evaluate interns performance using a survey. The general assessment section of the survey will be used to assess interns' performance. We will use items 3 (overall performance) and 4 (career potential) as a means of assessing interns' performances. Items 3 and 4 in the general assessment section are measured on a five point likert scale (excellent, above average, average, needs improvement, unacceptable).
Criterion
Develop Students' Professional Experience
In terms of the number of internships, we will expect to offer at least 22 internships per year, two more over the previous year. These new internships can come from one employer, such as the Huntsville Park and Recreations Department which might offer multiple positions. In addition, by the end of 2009-2010, we expect that the internship selection process by the supervisors will be more effective due to the input of the internship director.
We will expect that at least 70% of our interns will provide a positive answer (strongly agree or agree) to item 23 (overall, I enjoyed my intership) and to item 24 (overall, this internship contributed intern's career objectives).
We will expect that at least 70% of the supervisors will provide a positive answer (excellent or above average) to item 3 (overall performance) and to item 4 (career potential).
Finding
Develop Students' Professional Experience
Overview: The Political Science Department offered twenty-four internship experiences this year. Students and supervisors alike reported positive experiences this past year, and an unprecedented number of students were employed part time or full time following their internships.
Number of interns: The department accepted 24 students into the internship program, exceeded our expectations by 2 students. The interns worked in the following areas: federal government (5), non-profits (2), local government (11), campaigns (2), law (3), business/Chamber of Commerce (1). This diversity of internship offerings did yield positive results in terms of student satisfaction.
Quality of experience: 87% of the interns offered a positive answer (agree or strongly agree) to the question of whether they enjoyed the internship. A more detailed look at the data indicated the 11 of the 23 students responding to the survey strongly agree, 9 agree, while 3 somewhat agree. 78% either agreed or strongly agreed that the internship contributed to their career objectives. Again, a more detailed analysis indicates that 8 strongly agree, 10 students agree, while 5 students somewhat agree. These results exceeded our expectations.
From the supervisor's perspective, 96% provided a positive response to the question regarding the overal performance of the intern (12 excellent, 10 above average, and 1 average) while 100 percent of the supervisors agreed or strongly agreed to the question regarding the intern's career potential (12 strongly agree and 11 agree). These results exceeded our expectations.
Note: There were only 23 respondents due to one student dropping the internship and neither the student nor the supervisor completed an evaluation.
Action
Develop Students' Professional Experience
The department will continue to offer at least 20 internships per year as well as continue the efforts of diversification. Specifically, the department will work toward increasing diversity by expanding the types of internships in terms of fields, agencies and region.
The department will also improve our tracking of interns to see which ones find employment and which ones are admitted to graduate programs.
Goal
Develop Computer Literacy
Throughout their enrollment, students must demonstrate basic computer competency and skills.
Objective
Develop Computer Literacy
Throughout their enrollment, students must demonstrate basic computer competency and skills.
Indicator
Accessing Electronic Resources
Students enrolled in all upper division courses will be required to use electronic databases to complete at least one assignment.
A portion of the student's assignment grade will be determined by their ability to locate the relevant literature in the electronic databases.
Criterion
Develop Computer Literacy
We expect 80% of the assignments to successfully reference literature from the electronic databases. We expect that any assignment that fails to include electronic sources will not receive a grade greater than a D on that assignment.
Finding
Develop Computer Literacy
Examining the syllabi of upper-division courses of the fall 2009 and spring 2010 revealed that 34 out 40 courses clearly indicated a writing assignment that required accessing some sort of electronic database and/or program. The department needs to develop a better mechanism to track whether there is at least one assignment which requires to students to develop and practice computer literacy skills.
We found that many faculty are utilizing a variety of online sources, thus the indicator needs to be reviewed and expanded to include databases of newspapers, non-academic journals, IGO and NGO online databases, etc.
Action
Computer Literacy
Each subfield of study will be assigned a team of 2 faculty members to develop a mechanism and rubric to assess computer literacy. The mechanism should indicate whether an assignment is required and how the use of electronic sources/databases are assessed in the assignment.