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 Rating
Data for employer rating of interns was available on 18 of the 20 students who attained the BA degree in fashion merchandising during the period August 2010 through May 2011. Of these 18 students, five (27.7%) received a rating of 3, six students (33.3%) received a rating of 4, and 7 students received a rating of 5 (38.8%). Therefore, 72.1% of students received a rating of 3.5 or better, so this portion of the criterion was not met. Data was also available on eighteen of the interns as to whether the employers would hire them given the availability of a suitable entry-level management position in the company. In this case, 16 (88.9%) of the employers answered "yes" to this question, so this portion of the criterion was met.
Action
Employer/Supervisor Rating
Based on feedback from discussions with internship employers, the primary reason given for the lower rating was that those interns who received a rating of 3, as opposed to 4 or 5, were willing to do whatever work was assigned to them and did the work in a timely and accurate fashion, but did not readily seek out work if it was not assigned. This was disappointing to the employers and supervisors, and resulted in the lower rating. Still, as a group, supervisors saw potential in the students and believed that, with some mentoring and maturity, they would make solid employees, therefore the higher rating concerning their willingness to give them a chance in the workplace. The fashion merchandising program regularly brings in guest speakers, especially in the senior-level courses, to inform these students of the expectations of the workplace. For the coming academic year, a greater effort will be made to bring in recent, successful fashion retail managers who can help these students who will soon be in internships to know how to appropriately determine what needs to be accomplished on a daily basis and to avoid the "I don't know what to do now" situation. All in all, a stronger work ethic needs to be encouraged among these students, and we will seek to do that in fashion merchandising courses.
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
Of the 20 students who attained the BA degree in fashion merchandising from August 2010 through May 2011, data from the Exit Survey is available on 14. Of the 14, 100% received a score of Low Pass, Pass, or High Pass so this criterion was met. Student performance was better in the Case Study question where they were able to apply what they had learned to a given problem in the workplace and not as strong in the multiple choice where students were required to recall specific details from course work.
Action
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
While this criterion was met for the 14 students, it was available for only 70% of those who graduated during this assessment cycle. This is disappointing and for this coming cycle, a greater effort will be made to collect a more complete set of surveys. In recent years, students have been encouraged to report in internship logs how activities in the workplace connect back to course work, and this has seemed to improve scores. The Case Study reports generally are good, especially with those students who write well and have more real world experience. This sort of writing will be encouraged through assignments in the senior merchandising seminar course.
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
Students did well with the computer literacy assignments. The data collection process was changed so that a single score on each student was calculated, using Excel Spreadsheet-based assignments, word-processed assignments, and PowerPoint assignments. 95% of students met the rating of 3 or better -- of the 20 students graduating from this program, one scored 2.5 (5%), one scored 3 (5%), one scored 3.5 (5%), six scored 4 (30%), seven scored 4.5 (35%), and four scored 5 (20%). Therefore, this criterion was met.
Action
Computer Literacy
95% of students in this program met the university's requirements for computer literacy as part of the undergraduate curriculum. However, the instructors who teach the course believe that additional work in the area of database management is needed.