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/Supervisor 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-yes, hire with reservations-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 (FACS 4369). 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
A total of fourteen students graduated with the BS degree in Family and Consumer Sciences, and employer evaluations were collected on 11 of these (two were becoming certified to teach family and consumer sciences so they were not subject to the internship requirement). Of the eleven, one (9%) received a rating of 5, another received a rating of 4.9 (also 9%), 4 received a rating of 4.5 (27%), five received a rating of 4 (45%), and one received a rating of 3 (9%). Therefore, this criterion was met. Of the eleven whose employers/supervisors were asked whether he/she would hire the intern for a suitable, entry-level position, all eleven indicated they would (100%), and indeed several had already been hired by the supervisor under whom the internship was completed. Therefore, this criterion was met.
Action
Employer/Supervisor Evaluation
We modified the evaluation form this past cycle to include three options rather than two (yes or no) as there had been in the past. This time we divided the “yes” option into “yes, hire without reservation” and “yes, hire with reservation” in the hope of getting additional feedback for program improvement. However, although we received both "yes" responses, there was little feedback, so we plan to modify the process.
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 90% 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
Data is available on 12 of the 14 students who graduated with the BS degree in Family and Consumer Sciences for the 2012-2013 cycle. Of the 12, three students received a rating of High Pass (25%) and 9 received a rating of Pass (75%) on the Exit Survey (one student took the national certifying exam and passed that rather than the Exit Survey -- see below). Therefore, this criterion was met. Of the 14 students, two became/are becoming certified Family and Consumer Sciences secondary teachers upon graduation. In order to achieve this goal, they must pass the national certification exam for family and consumer sciences sponsored by the national organization, American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. This is a stringent exam and covers all of the content areas under the FCS umbrella. One student has passed this exam, and the other's status is unknown at the time of this writing (July 29). Overall, the passage rate for students from this department who take this exam is over 90%, indicating that the subject matter content for this program is very strong.
Action
Exit Survey - Knowledge And Skills
100% of students who completed the BS in Family and Consumer Sciences for the 2012-2013 cycle scored a grade of High Pass or Pass on this exam (3/12 scored a grade of High Pass and 9/12 scored a grade of Pass). Because 100% of student scored passing grades on this instrument, we are working with the idea of abandoning this instrument and instead using the scoring on fourteen professional skills identified as critical to professional success on the Performance Appraisal of Student Intern as completed by the Internship Supervisor.
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
At least 90% of family and consumer sciences majors who take the courses FACS 2368 and FACS 4362 during the 2012-2013 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
Seven out of 9 students who completed the course in which the word-processing and spreadsheet projects were assigned made a grade of 4 or 5 (77.8%), and the other two students did not complete this project giving them a grade of 0. Therefore, this criterion was not met for these two areas -- word-processing and spreadsheet. Six students (100%) who completed the course in which the PowerPoint presentation was required all scored a 5 on that assignment; therefore, this criterion was met for the PowerPoint area of computer literacy.
Action
Computer Literacy
We are looking into the matter of the students who did not complete the assignments, although they did receive passing grades for the course. This assignment is given in an on-line course, and we believe it is the specific project that is targeted for this report that is the problem, and that perhaps this is not the best measure of students' computer literacy. Yet the university requires that we measure and report results regarding computer literacy, and this is the means that was chosen and that worked well at one time. Overall, it is obvious that students are entering the university with good computer literacy skills and are further developing these skills during their time as undergraduate students.