College of Business (CB) Assessment Plan and Results
Academic Year of Report: 2009-2010
All CB activities are driven by its mission: “CWU’s College of Business faculty and staff create value and
opportunity for our students by focusing on quality in undergraduate education at the Ellensburg campus and
university centers in the Puget Sound and central regions of Washington state. We accomplish this through
emphasis on excellence in teaching, strengthened by faculty research and supported by professional service.”
GOAL 1: Create value by graduating students who possess foundation knowledge (CWU Goal I)
Method(s) of Assessment: Direct (ETS, CPA Exam).
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Graduating Seniors: ETS Exit Exam; Graduating MPA’s: CPA Exam.
When Assessed (term, dates): Capstone courses for undergraduates; Yearly for MPAs.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Vested in continuously improving pass
rates on each portion of the exam.
Analysis to Date:
Overall ETS Scores
Fall ‘09: 157.71 (80th percentile, ’06-’09 Nat’l Scores)
Winter ‘10: 158.46 (75th percentile, ’06-’09 Nat’l Scores)
Spring ’10: 158.59 (80th percentile, ’06-’09 Nat’l Scores)
ETS Subscores ‘03-‘05, ‘06-‘09, ‘09-‘10
’03-’05
Avg.
Mean %
Correct
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Quantitative
Bus. Analysis
Legal and Social
International
Marketing
Management
Information
Systems
’06-’09
(Spr) Avg.
Mean %
Correct
52.9
40.6
48.8
62.4
58.4
60.9
53.7
49.5
’06-’09
(Spr) Avg.
scores
%at/below
CWU (ETS
’06-09 %)
85
85
75
65
51.3
47.7
49.4
60.6
49.7
59.3
55.9
59.6
62.1
65
65
60
65
70
’09 (Fall)’10 (Spr)
Avg.
Mean %
Correct
57.3
63.2
55.1
49.6
’09-’10
scores
%at/belo
w CWU
(ETS ’0609 %)
80
80
85
65
51.4
61.1
57.0
60.4
61.9
75
75
70
70
70
Based on this year’s overall ETS Scores in comparison with the last national norms provided, it can be stated that
those BSAccounting and BSBA students graduating in ’09-’10 are performing in the 75th-80th percentile in the
nation. National comparisons can be complex since it is based on the quality of schools in the data set. Of more
germane interest is whether the number of questions answered correctly is going up or down. In comparing the
mean percentage of questions answered correctly for the subscores for the year’s ’03-’05 and ’09-’10, with only
one real exception, quantitative business analysis where the mean percentage answered correctly slipped 12.8
points, all other percentages have gone up, sometimes substantially as with finance (22.6 points). We attribute
the slippage in quantitative business analysis to the loss of a required advanced business stats course, effective
2003-2004. More time speculating is required for the leap in finance scores. Of most interest are the subscores in
marketing and management. Low scores in earlier years led to a revamping of the undergraduate program
effective 2008-09 where upper-division courses were closed to non-major students and then creating non-major
versions of some core courses (Introduction to Marketing and Introduction to Management). It takes time for
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students under previous catalogs to graduate so that movement in scores is not expected immediately. Still it is
noteworthy that Management subscores are holding steady and Marketing has moved upwards 7.6 points.
With regard to economics, since the ETS exam is new to the department, there is not a great deal of actionable
data as of yet.
Year
# of Students
Overall
Macro-subscore
Micro-subscore
’08-‘09
20
169
70
65
’09-‘10
31
162
60
62
With regard to the MPA, CPA exam results were intended to be the assessment tool. However that approach is on
hold. In December, 2009, the faculty had voted to suspend the program due to the lack of a critical mass of
faculty. Since then, due to the salary support of a new CWU president and provost, there was success in filling
vacant tenure-track positions. Starting this year, 5 of the 7 faculty teaching in the MPA program are new and there
will be an intense revisit of the curriculum and the Assurances of Learning program for the MPA.
GOAL 2: Create value by graduating students who possess appropriate skills in the following areas: written
communication, oral communication, teamwork, critical thinking and ethics (CWU Goal I)
Methods of Assessment: Direct (Rubrics for written, oral, teamwork, critical thinking and ethics for the
BSBA/BSAcc. Rubrics for economics include written, oral, critical thinking. MPA uses written rubric.).
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Graduating Seniors: rubrics applied to exit case study and group project
for BSBA/BSAcc. BSEcon uses Econ 406 (Economics Assessments), Econ 426 (Economic Research), Econ 352
(Managerial) and Econ 332 (Public Finance) for written and oral assessment. The critical thinking rubrics is used
through all economics courses. Exiting MPAs: written rubric applied to comprehensive exam.
When Assessed (term, dates): Capstone courses for undergraduates offered quarterly. Comprehensive exam for
MPAs offered year end.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): For the undergraduates, CB is vested in
continuously improving. For the graduates, 90% of the students should score 3 or higher in each area of the
written communication rubric.
Analysis to date:
Effective January 2010, programs of BSBA, BS Accounting, and BS-Econ-Business & Forecasting emphasis, the
following courses and associated faculty have undertaken responsibility for supporting the following goals:
Course/Faculty
MIS 386
FIN 370
OSC 323
MKT 362
MGT 382
Program Goal
Oral
Critical Thinking
Teamwork
Written
Ethics
In examining the rubric results thus far, for the 5 quarters of F08, W09, Sp09, F09, and W10, the overall average on
scale of 1-4 for the written communication is 2.31, for critical thinking, 2.09. For oral communication and ethical
issues, one less quarter is available, F08, because the rubrics were still being refined. For ethical, the average is
1.30 and for oral, the average is 2.73. For peer assessment, one additional quarter of Spring 10 is available and this
one is based not on faculty evaluations but on student evaluations. The average over 6 quarters is 3.37. It is not
possible to improve on all fronts at once, but rather the more cogent approach is to pick one area and try to
improve it. In years passed, that was functional knowledge with the revamping of the curriculum and the focus on
the marketing and management area. Now attention will be turned to “closing the loop” based on rubric results.
The faculty have decided that the easiest thing to tackle is the writing. Clearly writing could use improvement but
it has been determined that students need to come in to the program with a certain amount of basic skill. This fall,
a nationally normed exam known as Accuwriter will be tested to determine the feasibility of implementing it as
part of the admission standard to the school.
GOAL 3: Create value by graduating students who are satisfied with their educational experience (CWU Goal 1)
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Methods of Assessment: Indirect (surveys).
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Alumni.
When Assessed (term, dates): CWU Testing Services surveys graduates every 5 years by department.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Vested in continuously improving
perceptions of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Analysis to Date:
Graduate satisfaction surveys. As a recently introduced service, Testing Services has begun surveys of alumni. For
the year 2009-10, no surveys were conducted for the College of Business.
GOAL 4: Create opportunity by providing accessibility to students in Washington state through programs and
courses delivered at the Ellensburg campus and at well-established University Centers co-located on dynamic
community college campuses (CWU Goal 1)
Methods of Assessment: Direct (Enrollment Data).
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Annual Average FTES by departments, by location.
When Assessed (term, dates): Annually.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Enrollment expectations are based on
capacity as measured by number of faculty deployed in conjunction with the CB standards for maximum
enrollments by level of course taught.
Analysis to Date:
The latest set of enrollment data available, 2009-2010, indicates that the College of Business Ellensburg campus
has 60.51% of CB students followed by Lynnwood at 20.19%, Des Moines at 16.2% and 3.1% at remaining centers.
This contrasts to CWU as a whole at 85.12% followed by Des Moines at 5.7%, Lynnwood at 5%, and remaining
centers at 4.2%. Thus 39.49% of CB’s enrollment is at centers in contrast to 14.88% of CWU as a whole.
GOAL 5: Create opportunity for a diverse student population (CWU Goal 6)
Methods of Assessment: Direct (Enrollment data-Diversity data by headcount).
Who/What Assessed (population, item): CB and CWU student population.
When Assessed (term, dates): Yearly.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Gender/ethnicity levels approximate
gender/ethnicity representation in the state.
Analysis to Date: As the table shows, student diversity both in terms of gender and race, typically is equivalent or
exceeds the diversity for the state and CWU in general.
Census 2009-WA
In Percent1
50.0
CB 2009 in Percent2
CWU 2009 in
Percent2
51.5
50.1
FEMALE
PERSONS
White/Middle
83.8
73.1
78.6
Eastern
American Indian
1.8
.6
.7
Asian
7.0
10.3
3.6
Black
3.9
3.9
2.8
Hispanic
10.3
7.1
8.4
Pacific Islander
.5
.5
.3
Multi-racial
3.1
4.4
5.5
Minority
MINORITY
26.6
26.8
21.3
SUBTOTAL
1
U.S. Census approach double counts Hispanics as Whites and Hispanics so the total exceeds 100%.
2
These figures vary slightly from CWU Office of Research to account for the fact that their breakdown includes
internationals, unknowns, etc. Here, figures are adjusted to match U.S. Census with the caveat that CWU does not
double count Hispanics.
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GOAL 6: Create opportunity by providing an affordable business education
Methods of Assessment: Direct: CWU tuition costs.
Who/What Assessed (population, item): CWU tuition costs.
When Assessed (term, dates): CWU tuition costs.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): CWU tuition benchmarks
Analysis to Date:
As can be seen in the table below, CWU has the third lowest tuition in the state.
2010-2011
CWU
EWU
WSU
UW-Seattle
WWU
In-state average for full-time
undergraduates
$6,201
$6,063
$8,592
$8,122
$6,081
GOAL 7: Provide quality in undergraduate education through teaching excellence (CWU Goal 1)
Methods of Assessment: Indirect (Surveys: Student Evaluation of Instruction)
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Students are assessed about faculty
When Assessed (term, dates): Every quarter, every class
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Vested in stable, continuous improvement
of the SEOI’s averaged across the college.
Analysis to Date
Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEOI data) overall average for the College of Business for every question for the
09-10 academic year was over 4.0.
GOAL 8: Provide quality in undergraduate education by delivering courses with an appropriate mix of
academically/professionally quality (AQ/PQ) faculty and participating/supporting faculty (CWU Goal 5)
Methods of Assessment: Direct (Faculty who meet AQ/PQ standards and who are classified as participating)
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Faculty
When Assessed (term, dates): Yearly
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): At least 50% of the faculty are AQ and 90%
are AQ+PQ with participating faculty delivering 75% of the school’s teaching and 60% of the teaching by discipline
and location.
Analysis to Date:
For the academic year, 2009-2010, for the undergraduate program, over 71% of the faculty are AQ while 94% are
AQ+PQ. Finance is problematic at 80%. With regard to participating, nearly 80% of the teaching is done by
participating faculty. The MPA program has not met the 90% standard during the 09-10. With new hires, teaching
assignments are expected to shift during the 10-11 year to bring the MPA program in compliance at 90%.
GOAL 9: Provide quality in undergraduate education through our faculty who research primarily in the area of
contributions to practice, and learning and pedagogical research, and secondarily in discipline-based research
(CWU Goal 5)
Methods of Assessment: Direct (Category A and Category B output for professional development)
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Faculty research output.
When Assessed (term, dates): Yearly
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): At least 50% of the faculty are AQ; Mix of
research output with contribution to practice and pedagogical research dominating the mix.
Analysis to Date:
For the academic year, 2009-2010 academic year, the undergraduate program was over 71% of the faculty are AQ.
For the 5-year period, 2005-2010, 71.9% of intellectual contributions have been in the categories of pedagogical
and practice with less than 30% being discipline based.
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GOAL 10: Provide quality in undergraduate education through excellent facilities, distance education facilities,
and library data-base resources (CWU Goal 3)
Methods of Assessment: Direct (monetary investments).
Who/What Assessed (population, item): Physical facilities.
When Assessed (term, dates): Yearly.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Adequate CWU budget devoted to
maintain or enhance physical facilities, DE, library resources.
Results to Date:
I have contacted Carmen Rahm, Asst. Vice President for Information Technology for information on distance
education facilities and have received no response.
The library did respond and has provided information that informed the following:
The general services include a staffed physical presence on the university’s main campus as well as at the two
largest university centers. The main campus collection provides an in-depth collection of print monographs and
journals selected primarily upon the advice of the department chairs. Additional titles can be requested by faculty
and students for consideration to the permanent collection. The university center libraries maintain smaller and
more focused collections serving individual courses and faculty.
All CWU students and faculty have the opportunity to request non-university owned materials through a number
of resource-sharing agreements among academic libraries at the regional and the national levels. This ability has
and will continue to grow in importance as overall university support to the library continues to decrease with the
on-going fiscal crisis.
The library has decreased the number of physical journal holdings and opted for various university-wide databases
containing journal articles, reports and other business-related informational sources. Due to existing contractual
agreements between publishers and the databases vendors, most journals are limited in their access to a single
database. As a result many tier-one business journals are forced to choose between Proquest and Ebsco. CWU
has been forced to choose one and thereby not allow immediate access to faculty and students to resources by the
other. Resultantly, CWU researchers have to request some items via interlibrary loan.
Other specific databases have been cancelled in the recent past such as Hoovers, an industry standard for
company information. Other databases such as CCH in Accounting have been cancelled in favor of cheaper and
often inferior products such as RIA. Other databases such as CRSP, (Center for Research in Security Prices) long
sought after by research Finance professionals, is no longer discussed.
Overall, while the Brooks library attempts to meet the informational needs of its faculty and students in the
College of Business, it finds itself due to continually escalating vendor costs and long-term static or reduced
institutional funding to be in a position of slowly cutting resources not so much based on their merit but on their
costs. Business information is expensive and often available only through a limited number of vendors.
Goal 11: Provide quality in undergraduate education through linkages with CB Advisory Board, alumni, and
employers, as well as through faculty professional service (e.g., serving on professional boards) (CWU Goal 4)
Methods of Assessment: Direct: Advisory Board and alumni participation, fundraising, professional service by
faculty.
Who/What Assessed (population, item): # of Board Members regularly participating in meetings; # of alumni
participating in events; amount raised from private resources; # faculty participating and # of organizations served.
When Assessed (term, dates): Yearly.
Criterion of Achievement (Expectation of how good things should be?): Maintain or increase.
Results to Date:
The Advisory Board consists of 30 business professionals from the Seattle area and central region of the state. The
Board meets 3 times per year. As a benchmark using spring when it convenes in Ellensburg, in 2010, 40%
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participated. This contrasts with 2009 when 54% participated and 42% participated in 2008. 2009-2010 marked
the 35th anniversary of the creation of the College of Business. The central theme of “celebrating 35 years” with
emphasis placed on the May Honors Banquet that included a reunion for alumni, faculty, and staff from our past.
Typical attendance at the Honors Banquet is 200. This year, it was 300. Two benchmarks can be used for
fundraising, the Competitive Edge Fund (CEF) which supports faculty research output (Research Grant Awards
Program) and Scholarship funding. For 2009-2010, there were 14 articles published with $38,000 in Research
Grant Awards given. A total of more than $325,000 has been awarded for faculty research output in this program
since 2003. In 2009, the total amount given in scholarship monies was $81,950, and in 2010 the total given was
$94,939. This was an increase between 08-09 and 09-10 of $12,989. For the academic year of ’09-‘10, 28 faculty
participated in serving 61 community and professional organizations.
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