2013-2014 Annual Program Assessment Report
Please submit report to your department chair or program coordinator, the Associate Dean of your College and the assessment
office by Tuesday, September 30, 2014. You may submit a separate report for each program which conducted assessment activities.
College:
Department:
Program:
Assessment liaison:
David Nazarian College of Business and Economics
Economics
All undergraduate business programs
Glen Whitman
1. Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s). Provide a brief overview of this year’s assessment plan and process.
In the previous academic year (2012-13), the Economics department adopted new SLOs and a new schedule for assessment and
program review. There are now only six SLOs (down from twelve). According to the new schedule, all six SLOs should be
assessed every other year (2013-14, 2015-16, etc.), while program review is performed in the intervening years.
However, due to miscommunication about the new schedule, as well as a course that is usually offered but wasn’t this year, we
only assessed four of the six SLOs this year. We will therefore assess the remaining two SLOs next year.
SLOs assessed this year:
 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.
SLOs not assessed this year:
 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.
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All assessment is performed in 400-level courses, which are taken mostly by economics majors in their senior year. In 2013-14,
there were approximately 300 economics majors, with about 60 of them expected by graduate by the end of the academic year.
Given that the 400-level classes in question ranged from 22 to 43 students, the sample sizes actually constitute a fairly high
percentage (approximately 1/3 to 2/3) of the population of senior economics students.
2. Assessment Buy-In. Describe how your chair and faculty were involved in assessment related activities. Did department
meetings include discussion of student learning assessment in a manner that included the department faculty as a whole?
Instructors in 400-level economics courses collect assessment data for assigned SLOs and forward the results to the Assessment
Coordinator for analysis. The Assessment Coordinator and departmental Assessment Committee use the results of previous
years’ assessment to do program review, which includes recommending changes to curriculum, SLOs, and assessment
responsibilities. Any recommended changes are then approved or rejected by the department as a whole. Discussion takes
place either in person during departmental meetings or via email.
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
Have strong communication skills.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)

Written Communication
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
ECON 412 (fall): Students were assigned a term paper in which they were required either to analyze the historical evolution of a specific
theory or policy perspective, or to describe the influence of a specific economist or school of thought on the work of subsequent
economists.
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ECON 433 (spring): Students were assigned a term paper in which they were instructed to use economic theory to analyze a collective
decision-making outcome or public policy.
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at
different points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment
points used.
ECON 412: The work of 41 students in 1 class section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample,
which provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
ECON 433: The work of 39 students in 1 class section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample,
which provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from
the collected evidence.
ECON 412: 24% of students’ work was classified as very good, 56% good enough, and 20% not good enough.
ECON 433: 26% of students’ work was classified as very good, 56% good enough, and 18% not good enough.
ANALYSIS: The Economics Department sets a standard of at least 70% of students with good enough or very good performance for this
learning goal. The results above indicate the standard is being met (80% of students successful in ECON 412, 82% in ECON 433).
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible
changes include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in
program, changes in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs,
new or revised assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
N/A
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
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3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
Have strong quantitative skills, including the ability to use and interpret economic statistics.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)

Quantitative Literacy
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
ECON 409 (spring): Students were assigned a research project involving the application of econometric techniques.
ECON 410 (spring): Students were given a question on their midterm exam that required the use of quantitative skills. The question
involved setting up two optimization problems (one for a social planner, the other for a monopolist), finding their first-order conditions,
and deriving the Ramsey number for each one.
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at
different points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment
points used.
ECON 409: The work of 43 students from 1 section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample, which
provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
ECON 410: The work of 23 students from 1 section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample, which
provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from
the collected evidence.
ECON 409: 26% of students’ work was deemed very good, 65% good enough, and 9% not good enough.
ECON 410: 48% of students’ work was deemed very good, 22% good enough, and 30% not good enough.
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ANALYSIS: The Economics Department sets a standard of at least 70% of students with good enough or very good performance for this
learning goal. The results above indicate the standard is being met (91% of students successful in ECON 409, 70% in ECON 410). The
disparate results between the two courses might seem to suggest the need for calibration of standards. However, the two instruments
measure markedly different types of quantitative skill (one involving statistics/econometrics, the other involving calculus), so differing
results are not surprising.
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible
changes include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in
program, changes in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs,
new or revised assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
N/A
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
Be able to express key economic concepts both intuitively and more formally.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)

Critical Thinking
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
ECON 412 (fall): Students were given a question on the final exam which asked how, according to Adam Smith, “profit” and “interest”
are defined, and then asked the students to identify the relationship between the profit rate and the interest rate in long-run
equilibrium. This question required students to have a good intuitive understanding of Smith’s notion of the “natural rate of interest,”
and also to be able to analyze more formally the dynamics of adjustment that occur when the interest rate is not equal to the profit rate
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(which can be done either graphically or analytically with reference to the inverse relationship between the price of bonds and the
market interest rate).
ECON 410 (spring): Students were given a question on the final exam which asked them to define isoprofit curves and response
functions, to define equilibrium conditions for Cournot and Stackelberg duopolies, to show Cournot and Stackelberg equilibria
graphically, and to explain intuitively why the two equilibria differ.
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at
different points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment
points used.
ECON 412: The work of 40 students in 1 section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample, which
provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
ECON 410: The work of 22 students in 1 section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample, which
provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from
the collected evidence.
ECON 412: 23% of students’ work was classified as very good, 45% good enough, and 33% not good enough (adding up to 101% due to
rounding).
ECON 410: 36% of students’ work was classified as very good, 55% good enough, and 9% not good enough.
ANALYSIS: The Economics Department sets a standard of at least 70% of students with good enough or very good performance for this
learning goal. The results above are ambiguous about whether students are meeting this goal, with only 68% meeting the goal in ECON
412 but 91% meeting the goal in ECON 410. The disparity of the results suggests that calibration of standards may be useful.
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible
changes include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in
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program, changes in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs,
new or revised assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
N/A
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
Understand how a decentralized market economy organizes economic activity, as well as the factors that may impede that
process.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)

Critical Thinking
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
ECON 411 (fall): Students were given a question on the midterm exam describing an antitrust case and asking them to identify the
factors in the case that impede the ability of a decentralized market economy to organize economic activity. The same thing was
repeated on the final exam with a different antitrust case. The results below are an average over these two questions.
ECON 433 (spring): Students were given a question on the final exam requiring students to explain the welfare condition for allocative
efficiency and to understand how this condition is attained in a competitive market economy.
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at
different points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment
points used.
ECON 411: The work of 27 students in 1 section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample, which
provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
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ECON 433: The work of 39 students in 1 section was assessed. The method described above creates a cross-sectional sample, which
provides a snapshot of the student population at one point in time.
3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from
the collected evidence.
ECON 411: 33% of students’ work was classified as very good, 52% as good enough, and 15% not good enough.
ECON 433: 28% of students’ work was classified as very good, 49% good enough, and 23% not good enough.
ANALYSIS: The Economics Department sets a standard of at least 70% of students with good enough or very good performance for this
learning goal. The results above indicate the standard is being met (85% of students successful in ECON 411, 77% in ECON 433).
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible
changes include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in
program, changes in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs,
new or revised assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
N/A
4. Assessment of Previous Changes: Present documentation that demonstrates how the previous changes in the program resulted in
improved student learning.
Although a number of program changes have been made over the years, we lack evidence that such changes have in fact improved student
learning. In general, previous assessment results had shown that the program was meeting its benchmarks, with the exception of the two old
SLOs related to macroeconomics (“Understand key macroeconomic measures of economic activity” and “Understand the impact of monetary
and fiscal policies on macroeconomic variables”). The new SLOs combine the two old macro SLOs into one (“Understand key macroeconomic
variables and how fiscal and monetary policies affect them”), and the instructors of ECON 401 (our 400-level macroeconomics course) have
created a common instrument for assessing it. We hope the new instrument, and the streamlined process in general, will allow better tracking
of student learning in the future.
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5. Changes to SLOs? Please attach an updated course alignment matrix if any changes were made. (Refer to the Curriculum Alignment
Matrix Template, http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
As noted in the response to question 1, the Economics Department made substantial changes to its SLOs, which necessitated changes to
assessment responsibilities as well. See attached 5-year plan for details.
6. Assessment Plan: Evaluate the effectiveness of your 5-year assessment plan. How well did it inform and guide your assessment
work this academic year? What process is used to develop/update the 5-year assessment plan? Please attach an updated 5-year
assessment plan for 2013-2018. (Refer to Five Year Planning Template, plan B or C,
http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
Actual assessment activities differed substantially from those in the 5-year plan, for a couple of reasons. First, a 400-level course that had been
assigned assessment responsibility (ECON 405) was not offered as expected. Second, miscommunication resulted in one 400-level course (ECON
401) performing no assessment at all, and another course (ECON 411) not assessing one of the SLOs assigned to it. As a result, only four out of
six SLOs were assessed this year. The remaining two will be assessed in 2014-15.
7. Has someone in your program completed, submitted or published a manuscript which uses or describes assessment activities in your
program? Please provide citation or discuss.
No.
8. Other information, assessment or reflective activities or processes not captured above.
None.
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