Family And Consumer Sciences BA (Fashion Merchandising)
Goal
Employer/Supervisor Evaluation
The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will graduate Fashion Merchandising students who perform well in positions of employment within the fashion industry.
Objective
Demonstration Of Applied Professional Competence
The student will demonstrate professional competence and the ability to apply what they have learned (egs., appropriate product knowledge, knowledge of business procedures, knowledge of industry systems) in various aspects of fashion merchandising.
Indicator
Employer/Supervisor Evaluation Data
The supervisor evaluation form for fashion merchandising 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 fashion merchandising 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/fashion merchandising 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 course (FCS 469). The other programs that use this same form are interior design, general family and consumer sciences (without a teaching certificate), and food service management.
Criterion
80% Employer/Supervisor Rating 3.5 Or Better
80% of business supervisors of fashion merchandising 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 Responses
Of the four students who earned the BA in fashion merchandising over the two long semesters, employer supervisor ratings were available on three of them. All three supervisors rated the interns either as 4 or 4.5 on a 5-point scale, so that this goal was achieved at 100% for those ratings that were available. All four supervisors indicated that they would hire the intern given the availability of a suitable, entry-level management position within the company, so this portion of the goal was met at 100%.
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
Employer Satisfaction
The finding associated with this goal indicates that the interns going out into the job market are well-prepared and are deemed worthy of employment by their supervisors in the fashion industry. The main action that should be the focus in the coming year is to collect complete data in both categories, the rating data as well as whether or not business supervisors would recommend hiring the interns. Internship supervisors from the SHSU end will make a concerted attempt to collect complete and appropriate data on every student who graduates from the program. Another challenge is to emphasize professional behavior among interns.
Goal
Student Knowledge Of Content Area
The Department of Family and Consumer Sciences will graduate Fashion Merchandising majors who have an in-depth knowledge of the content area of the major.
Objective
Demonstration Of Content-Area Knowledge And Skills
Students graduating from the fashion merchandising program will demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary for entry-level management in fashion retailing/merchandising positions.
Indicator
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
The Exit Survey for fashion merchandising majors includes multiple-choice and short-answer sections that test retention of course material and a case study that applies directly to retail apparel merchandising; 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
80% Passing Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
80% of students who complete the fashion merchandising 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
100% of students who earned the BA in fashion merchandising during the period December 2009 - May 2010 attained a score of Pass or High Pass on the content portion of the Exit Survey.
Action
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
The rubric will be re-visited in order to determine whether the "Pass" score is set at too low a level. Such a change would require higher levels of knowledge demonstration on the content portion of the Exit Survey.
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 demonstrate knowledge and skills 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
90% Of Students Will Score At Least 3.0 On Assignments
90% of program 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
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 this 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 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.
Weaknesses were identified in that students had most difficulty with managing a database for budgets and presentation effectiveness using PowerPoint. Word-processing does not appear to be problematic for students.
Action
Computer Literacy
This goal was not met, 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 the 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. More instruction and monitoring are necessary in the areas of database management and PowerPoint presentations.