2014-2015 Annual Program Assessment Report
Please submit report to your department chair or program coordinator, the Associate Dean of your College, and to
james.solomon@csun.edu, director of assessment and program review, by September 30, 2015. You may, but are
not required to, submit a separate report for each program, including graduate degree programs, which conducted
assessment activities, or you may combine programs in a single report. Please identify your department/program in
the file name for your report.
College: David Nazarian College of Business and Economics
Department: Economics
Program: Economics
Assessment liaison: Glen Whitman
1.
Please check off whichever is applicable:
A. ___X_____ Measured student work.
B. ___X_____ Analyzed results of measurement.
C. ___X_____ Applied results of analysis to program review/curriculum/review/revision.
2.
Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s). On a separate sheet, provide a brief overview of this year’s
assessment activities, including:
 an explanation for why your department chose the assessment activities (measurement, analysis, and/or
application) that it enacted
 if your department implemented assessment option A, identify which program SLOs were assessed (please
identify the SLOs in full), in which classes and/or contexts, what assessment instruments were used and the
methodology employed, the resulting scores, and the relation between this year’s measure of student work
and that of past years: (include as an appendix any and all relevant materials that you wish to include)
 if your department implemented assessment option B, identify what conclusions were drawn from the
analysis of measured results, what changes to the program were planned in response, and the relation
between this year’s analyses and past and future assessment activities
 if your department implemented option C, identify the program modifications that were adopted, and the
relation between program modifications and past and future assessment activities
 in what way(s) your assessment activities may reflect the university’s commitment to diversity in all its
dimensions but especially with respect to underrepresented groups
 any other assessment-related information you wish to include, including SLO revision (especially to ensure
continuing alignment between program course offerings and both program and university student learning
outcomes), and/or the creation and modification of new assessment instruments
Preview of planned assessment activities for next year. Include a brief description and explanation of how
next year’s assessment will contribute to a continuous program of ongoing assessment.
3.
EXPLANATION OF ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES
The Economics Department conducts assessment on a two-year cycle, which was first implemented in 2013-14. In
the first year of the cycle, we assess student work (options A and B) in all six of our SLOs. In the second year of the
cycle, we conduct program review (option C) in all six SLOs.
However, due to a miscommunication in the first year of the current cycle, we only assessed four SLOs in 2013-14.
Therefore, we assessed work for the other two SLOs this year, while conducting program review on the four that had
been assessed. To summarize:
Assessment (Options A and B) was conducted on the following SLOs:
 Understand key macroeconomic variables and how fiscal and monetary policies affect them.
 Understand how institutions, government policy, and regulation affect economic growth and the
relative wealth of economies.
Program Review (Option C) was conducted on the following SLOs:
 Have strong communication skills.
 Have strong quantitative skills, including the ability to use and interpret economic statistics.
 Be able to express key economic concepts both intuitively and more formally.
 Understand how a decentralized market economy organizes economic activity, as well as the factors
that may impede that process.
The department adopted the six SLOs above in 2012-13, pared down from a set of twelve SLOs that had proven
cumbersome. The two-year cycle for assessment and program review was adopted at the same time. As a result, we
are just now completing our first complete cycle under the new system. The second cycle begins in Fall 2015.
ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT WORK
SLO Assessed: “Understand key macroeconomic variables and how fiscal and monetary policies affect
them.”
Process: This SLO was assessed in one section of ECON 401 in Fall 2014, using a set of 21 multiple
choice questions during an in-class exam. One question was excluded from the results because the answer
was miscoded on the answer key, leaving 20 questions. The sample size was n = 37, consisting of all
students who attended the exam.
Unfortunately, the instructor only collected question-level results, not student-level results. As a result, we
cannot say how many students answered enough questions correctly to qualify as “very good,” “good
enough,” and “not good enough.” Instead, we can only report the percentage of students who answered
each question correctly.
Results: The percentage of students who answered questions correctly ranged from a low of 11% to a high
of 86%, with an average of 57% and a median of 61%. Clearly, there was a range of difficulty to the
questions. Breaking the results down by subtopic, we found:

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
On fiscal policy (2 questions), 35%-54% answered correctly.
On inflation and price level (5 questions), 11%-81% answered correctly.
On interest rates (2 questions), 16%-30% answered correctly.
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On macro measures of economic activity (6 questions), 27%-78% answered correctly.
On money and monetary policy (6 questions), 49%-86% answered correctly.
Analysis: It would be preferable to have student-level results instead of question-level results.
Nevertheless, the results suggest that our benchmark of 70% of our students’ performance being “very
good” or “good enough” is not being met for this SLO. It appears that students have the greatest difficulty
with interest rates, and the greatest success with money and monetary policy. Although this is the first year
that the department has assessed the new macroeconomics SLO, in previous years there had been a pattern
of poor performance on one or both of the two macro-related SLOs that were merged into this new one.
The latest results are consistent with that pattern.
SLO Assessed: “Understand how institutions, government policy, and regulation affect economic growth and
the relative wealth of economies.”
Process: This SLO was assessed in one section of ECON 412 in Fall 2014, using a final exam question on
the topic of how an increase in money supply affects three variables (investment, capital stock, and GDP),
depending on whether new money is channeled to savers or spenders. The sample size was n = 30,
consisting of all students who attended the exam.
Results: 17% of students’ work was deemed “very good,” 53% “good enough,” and 30% “not good
enough.”
Analysis: The department sets a benchmark of 70% of students’ work being “very good” or “good
enough.” That benchmark is satisfied here, although just barely (70%). Although we had intended to
measure this SLO in two courses, one of the intended courses was not offered in 2014-15. In the future,
two courses’ worth of data would be preferable.
PROGRAM REVIEW
The department conducted program review on four SLOs. The table below summarizes the results of
assessment in 2013-14:
SLO
Have strong communication skills
Have strong quantitative skills,
including the ability to use and interpret
economic statistics
Be able to express key economic
concepts both intuitively and more
formally
Understand how a decentralized market
economy organizes economic activity,
as well as the factors that may impede
that process
WHERE ASSESSED
ECON 412
ECON 433
ECON 409
ECON 410
RESULTS
80% “very good” or “good enough”
82% “very good” or “good enough”
91% “very good” or “good enough”
70% “very good” or “good enough”
ECON 410
ECON 412
91% “very good” or “good enough”
68% “very good” or “good enough”
ECON 411
ECON 433
85% “very good” or “good enough”
77% “very good” or “good enough”
As the results indicate, the department’s 70% benchmark for “very good” or “good enough” was clearly
met with respect to three SLOs, and ambiguously met for one SLO (“Be able to express key economic
concepts both intuitively and more formally”). For that reason, the department decided that no remedial
action was required.
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The department did consider the possibility of calibration to deal with the disparate results in some
categories (91% vs. 70% on one SLO, and 91% vs. 68% on another SLO). However, the types of question
used to assess were too different to allow meaningful calibration. The questions used in different courses
tended to cover different aspects of the topic in question. For instance, in the case of “quantitative skills,”
assessment in ECON 409 focused on econometric (statistical) techniques, whereas assessment in ECON
410 focused on use of calculus for optimization in a theoretical model.
COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY
None of the program’s SLOs is specifically related to the university’s commitment to diversity, except
insofar as our instructors always seek to make sure their assignments and activities respect that
commitment.
PREVIEW OF PLANNED ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY
In Fall 2015, the program begins a new assessment cycle. All six SLOs will be assessed in at least one, and
usually two, courses.
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