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
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 family-and-consumer-sciences-related positions.
Indicator
Employer/Supervisor Evaluation
Supervisor evaluation form for general 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 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 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, fashion merchandising, and food service management.
Criterion
Employer/Supervisor Ratings At Least 3.5
80% of business supervisors of family and consumer sciences 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 Ratings Of Interns
The data regarding business supervisors' ratings of interns was available on 7 of the 10 students who graduated from this program from August 2010 through May 2011. Four of the students received a rating of 4 and three received a rating of 5. Therefore this portion of the criterion was met at 100% for those students for whom a rating was reported. The three student teachers were not rated due to the different process that was used. However, 100% of business/educational supervisors of family and consumer sciences interns/student teachers indicated that they would hire the intern/student teacher given the availability of a suitable entry-level management or beginning teacher position.
Action
Employer/Supervisor Ratings Of Interns
Because 100% of employer/supervisors indicated that they would hire the intern/student teacher if a suitable opening existed and 100% of interns who were rating on a 5-point scale received a rating of at least 4, this criterion was met. However, more useful feedback could be obtained if the "yes" option was divided into "hire with reservations" and "hire without reservations." Then for those who indicated "hire with reservations" it would be possible to ask what those reservations might be. That would give more meaningful results in terms of identifying areas where improvement is needed.
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
Demonstration Of Content-Area Knowledge And Skills
Students graduating from the family and consumer sciences program will demonstrate the knowledge and skills necessary for entry-level management in family-and-consumer-sciences-related positions.
Indicator
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
The Exit Survey for family and consumer sciences 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
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
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 students who attained the BA in Family and Consumer Sciences in the period from August 2010 through May of 2011, all of them passed the exam, with 10% scoring a high pass, 70% scoring a pass, and 20% scoring a low pass. Thus this criterion is met at 100%. It was not possible to determine how the three students who are now certified FCS teachers scored, other than a pass (i.e, we could determine low or high), because that information is not available to the program at this time, but it is verified that they passed the content-area exam for family and consumer sciences.
Action
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
Program graduates met this criterion at 100%. Therefore, it would be appropriate to begin to "raise the bar" by changing the objective for next year so that the criterion would be that 90% of students score a Pass or High Pass on 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 computer literacy through specific assignments in FACS 2368 (word-processing assignment and a budget assignment using a spreadsheet) and in FACS 4362 (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
There is a specific rubric for each assignment.
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
Students in this program 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. All ten program graduates (100%) met the criterion for the computer literacy assignments, with one who scored 3.5, five who scored 4.5, and four who scored 5, all on a 5-point scale.
Action
Computer Literacy Assignments
100% 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.