TEN YEARS OF INSTUCTIONAL MEDIA AT UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY:
AFTERACTION REPORT OF THE GRADUATES
Submitted to
The Utah Educational Media Association Journal
(UEMA)
By
J. Nicholls Eastmond, Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Instructional Media
Department of Instructional Media
Utah State University
Logan, Utah
September 8, 1977
The Instructional Media Department at Utah State University has grown
dramatically over the past ten years. From its beginnings with Dr. Lester Essig as
Department Head with two part-time instructors offering a few classes, the
Department has grown to eight full time and six part-time instructors, 43 classes
offered and over twenty graduates at the masters level each year. As part of the
review for the National Council on Teacher Accreditation in Education (NCATE),
a study of graduates’ perceptions of the program was conducted. The aims were
(1) to identify areas of strength and weakness in the present program; and (2) to
select areas for future program emphasis.
To construct the survey instrument, nine IM faculty members were each
asked to generate five questions for one of the areas of competence listed by
Chisolm and Ely, shown in Figure 1 below.1
One of the areas cited by Chisolm and Ely, “Instruction” was included in
the other areas giving a total of nine sections to the questionnaire. After some
minor revisions, the questionnaire was mailed to the 162 alumni of the
Department for whom addresses were available. Of these 42 (26%) were
returned, a somewhat low response rate, likely due to the lack of current
addresses and the fact that no follow-up letters were sent. The results reported
below are based upon this sample.
1
Donal Ely and Margaret Chisholm. Media Personnel in Education. A competency Approach. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976, pp. 378.
Demographic Information
The major portion of returns (74%) were obtained from graduates since
1973, due partly to the smaller number of graduates in earlier years and the
greater difficulty in locating them. Some 83% of respondents had been involved
in the Masters degree program. All but two of the respondents report that they
are currently certified to teach. Although types of assignment vary considerably,
the position of local school media coordinator is held by half of those responding.
Performance of the Department
Because the majority of respondents are fairly recent graduates, for the
most part they can be considered reasonably knowledgeable about current
program offerings. Ratings tend toward the upper end of the scale, averaging 3
or more on a 5 point scale. Table 1 shows the highest and lowest items for each
of the nine categories. Some of the areas contained more than five items, making
a total of 55 items. A quick inspection of these items will demonstrate that the
ratings for different competency areas vary considerably. For example, one could
conclude that the ratings in “Evaluation” are uniformly high, while those in
“Research” are uniformly lower.
TABLE 1
HIGH AND LOW RATINGS BY GRADUATES OF THE USU IM DEPARTMENT
PERFORMANCE FOR EACH OF 9 COMPETENCY AREAS
“I would rate the IM Department as….
Successful
5
4
Unsuccessful Don’t Know
3
2
1 0
Area
Utilization
Information Retrieval
Evaluation
Production
Logistics
Personnel Management
Organizational Management
Research
Design
Highest Rating (Mean)
Ability to operate the basic
types of equipment found in
your media center (16mm
projectors, opaque, overhead,
slides and filmstrip projectors,
and tape recorder)
(4.51)
Ability to select reference
materials that meet local
needs. (4.36)
Ability to develop an
appropriate collection of
bibliographic sources and
selection tools (4.48)
The ability to create and
locally produce graphic
instructional materials. (4.64)
Ability to select and compile
orders for materials and
equipment. (4.33)
Ability to conduct inservice
training for professional, paraprofessional, and student staff
members within your area of
responsibility. (4.28)
Prepare educational
specifications and plan for a
specific media center. (4.17)
Ability in designing and
conducting evaluation
research for your program.
(3.88)
The ability to specify classify
within domains of learning a
set of performance objectives.
(4.35)
Lowest Rating (Mean)
Adequate experience to set up and
operate single system or closed
circuit TV within your school.
(3.03)
Ability to teach information retrieval
skills to faculty and students. (4.03)
Ability to implement procedures for
the evaluation and selection of
information available in all formats.
(4.05)
The ability to produce a short,
educational silent motion picture.
(3.18)
Ability to inspect materials and
equipment and arrange for
maintenance, repair, or
replacement. (3.90)
Ability to evaluate employee
performance. (4.00)
Locate information and guidelines
for supplemental funding and write
a proposal for a specific program.
(3.26)
The ability to apply research to
solving current problems. (3.63)
Ability to develop a valid set of test
items on measurement approaches
against stated learner oriented
objectives. (3.80)
These ratings have provided a basis for examination of program
performance, admittedly from the particular viewpoint of program graduates. As
Chisholm and Ely point out (p. 67) not every job requires competence in all
areas. The question becomes one of matching expectancies for the particular job
with the program outcomes observed.
Ratings of Criticality
At the end of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to go back and
circle the numbers of the “ten most critical items for the department to improve on
now.” In analyzing the results, items on the questionnaire were simply ranked,
with those circled the most as highest priority and so on. These critical items are
given in Table 2. Only nine are listed because six additional items were tied for
the tenth mark.
These items have been most useful to the department for planning
purposes. In many cases, these were areas in which action had already been
taken or which was about to begin. For example, a course in selection,
maintenance and repair of equipment (See 1 st and 4 th ranked items) has been
created and was offered as a pilot spring quarter 1977. A course in research
applications in media was also begun in spring 1977. Workshops in proposal
writing have also been offered. Assessing needs and pilot testing instructional
materials have become an integral part of the practicum experience required for
completion of the program.
TABLE 2
NINE ITEMS CITED AS MOST CRITICAL
BY IM DEPARTMENT GRADUATES
Rank
1
Number of
Critical Ratings
23
Question
Number
11
2
22
44
3
4
18
13
8
34
4
13
50
6
11
52
7
10
27
7
10
45
7
10
55
Routine maintenance and
repair
Proposal writing and finding
information for funding
Closed circuit TV
Inspecting equipment and
arranging for maintenance
Using research to solve
current problems
Identifying needs of
students and teachers
Communicate goals of
media program to public
Long range operational
planning
Models for pilot testing
instructional materials
There are some critical items which really have not yet been dealt with
directly by the IM department. Work with closed circuit TV is available through
the Communications Department on campus but has been taken by few recent
IM graduates. Practice in communicating the goals of media to the public and
conducting long rage operational planning are skills which now must be acquired
mainly on the job.
In accommodating these identified needs, one quickly encounters a major
instructional problem. If the graduate is to gain skills in each of these specific
areas, the number of class hours multiplies quickly beyond that deemed
reasonable for a masters degree student. Such a program quickly becomes overstructured into a lock-step course sequence.