OATdb Archive

2013 - 2014

Reading EDD

Goal
Professional Competence In Research
Students will demonstrate professional competence in original research in the area of literacy.


Objective
Comprehensive Publication For Submission
Students will prepare a journal-ready article to be presented to the graduate faculty within the program area.  This article will be evaluated to determine the knowledge of research and competence within the literacy field demonstrated by the students. 

Indicator
Article For Submission
Feedback on a manuscript review form will indicate strengths and weaknesses within the submission and indicate whether the article would be accepted, accepted with revision or rejected.  Based on the feedback, the student will be encouraged to revise or revise and resubmit.  If the article is accepted by the committee, the student will be supported through the process of submitting the article to an outside journal for review.

Criterion
All Students Will Submit An Article For Publication
After all the mentoring regarding producing a publication-ready article, we will claim success if 85% of students have submitted articles for publication.


Finding
Comprehensive Publication For Submission
Of the 10 students who completed the article for publication component of the comprehensive exam, 9 submitted their articles for publication and two were accepted with revisions. 


Action
Comprehensive Publication
Given that the program will go through it's formative program review this year, all of these objectives will be reexamined and recommendations will be implemented for future cycles.

Objective
Demonstrate Professional Competence In Literacy Research
Students will demonstrate professional competence in original research in the area of literacy.

Indicator
Rubric For Proposal For Dissertation
Working as a class and under the direction of the proposal class professor and graduate faculty members within the program area, students will construct a rubric for the evaluation of their dissertation proposal.  This rubric will then be used by the students and their committee to evaluate the areas of strength and weaknesses in the proposal.  It will also be used to guide the student towards addressing any weaknesses.


Criterion
Rubric For Proposal
Initial rubric results will be evaluated to determine areas of weaknesses within proposals that need to be addressed prior to the defense.  After the defense, the proposals will be evaluated to indicate increased learning on the part of the student if the areas of weakness are adequately addressed. Our goals will be that 1) 85% of students will initially have minor weaknesses on the proposal before the defense; and 2) 95% of students will have no weaknesses noted on the rubric after the defense.


Action
Professional Competence
Given that the program will go through it's formative program review this year, all of these objectives will be reexamined and recommendations will be implemented for future cycles.


Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement Students who were part of the newest cohort are in the process of submitting articles for publication.  3 out of the 10 students have submitted, the others are working with faculty towards that goal.  The new rubric seems to be working well, but faculty feedback has not yet been gathered.  Their reactions to the new rubric will be solicited with the idea that additional changes may need to be made.

Plan for continuous improvement There are two issues here that we will look at for 2013-2014. We need to stream line the process of evaluation and submission of the comprehensive article.  It is difficult to keep up with students as to the acceptance of articles for publication. Given that many are finishing the program before articles are accepted, we are not always getting that infomation submitted back to us. We are looking at a mechanism to be able to moniter this more closely.