GE Assessment Area III 2007-2008
To:
Jean Edwards, Ph.D., Director of General Education
From: Donna M. Schlagheck, Chair, Political Science
Re:
Area III General Education, Human Behavior
Attached you will find reports from Anthropology/Sociology, Economics, and Political Science.
Psychology delivered its report directly to you, and I invite you to amend this report to include the PSY
data.
All reporting departments have continued to revise and refine their assessment instruments. In the
ATH/SOC report, Dr. Guzzo notes that the goal of 80% correct responses was met in 9 of 17 topics
covered in SOC 200, but when re-weighted, the score rose to 15 of 17. ECO, which is continuing to work
on its assessment instrument for ECO 290, reported that in ECO 200 the correct response rate rose to 60
percent, a significant improvement over the 47 percent correct response rate last year. PLS also has rewritten questions, with a slightly greater emphasis on global aspects of political issues and policy
questions. The department’s goal of 80 percent correct responses was exceeded slightly. The
department will continue to examine the results, but will not revise the marker questions until the new
semester version of this GE course has been designed and approved. The Psy 105 report states that
student rating of learning outcomes were positive and improved over last year’s ratings; however, the
percentage of correct on marker questions on exams did not achieve the benchmark of 70% overall. A
mastery approach to assessment is under consideration