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Central Washington University
Assessment of Student Learning
Department and Program Report
Please enter the appropriate information concerning your student learning assessment activities
for this year.
Academic Year of Report: _2012-2013_______ College: College of the Sciences
Department ____Law and Justice___________ Program: ________________
The Assessment of LAJ Research Courses
1. What student learning outcomes were assessed this year, and why?
This departmental assessment report was scheduled to assess LAJ 300 Administration of Justice,
LAJ 302 Criminal Procedure and internships/co-operative learning.
For LAJ 300, our department assesses five skills in a short paper: (1) demonstrate
communication skills (writing) (2) demonstrate an understanding of the historical development
of a criminal justice related issue (3) Demonstrate an understanding of the operations of the
current criminal justice system in relation to a particular issue (4) demonstrate an understanding
of how the different parts of the criminal justice system impact each other (5) Use of
appropriate references and consistent referencing style.
For LAJ 302 Criminal Procedure, the artifact to be assessed was a legal brief. The skills to be
measured were (1) demonstrate communication skills (writing) (2) demonstrate the ability to
analyze a legal case, (3) correctly use appropriate legal terminology (4) identify legal issues
related to substantive law (holding) (5) identify procedural law history of case (6) use of
appropriate references and consistent referencing style.
Reviewers of the artifacts used four-point scale to determine pass or fail for both rubrics, with
zero presenting non-pass and 1, 2, 3 representing the score of pass.
These learning outcomes were measured because writing and legal analysis skills are required
by all criminal justice and legal agencies for employees. These learning outcomes are related to
department goal 1 - Assure the presentation of high quality program; and college goals 1, 2 and
7 - Provide for an outstanding academic experience in COTS; provide for an outstanding
academic and student life in college programs and courses at the university centers; college
programs and courses at university and create and sustain productive, civil, and pleasant
learning environments. These outcomes are also supportive of university goal 1.1 & 3.1—
Enhance student success by continually improving the curricular, co-curricular, and
extracurricular programs; increase the emphasis on and the opportunities for students, faculty
and staff to participate in research, scholarship, and creative expression activities.
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In regard to internships, the learning outcome was that students were to exhibit professionally
appropriate behavior. The outcome is related to department goal number one to assure
presentation of high quality programs and goal six to serve as a center for services in the
community and region; college goals one, two and five to maintain and strengthen an
outstanding academic and student life at all sites and build partnerships with private,
professional, academic, government, and community based organizations; University goals one
and two of maintaining and strengthening an outstanding academic and student life on
Ellensburg and University Center campuses.
2. How were they assessed?
A) What methods were used?
1. The LAJ assessment committee informed the faculty members who taught LAJ 300 and LAJ
302 to collect the research artifacts winter quarter and to turn them to the committee for
assessment at the end of the quarter.
2. Because the number of students in LAJ 300 has significantly increased on campus from 35
when the original assessment plan was developed, it was determined that our current
assessment method of using the short paper artifact did not scale to the much larger class size
now of 85 to 100 students. Therefore LAJ 300 was not reviewed during this assessment period.
3. For LAJ 302 Criminal Procedure, artifacts were collected. Case briefs were collected from
three sections of LAJ 302 sections. Case briefs serve a variety of pedagogical goals in law related
education. As artifacts in the assessment of Law and Justice education, they are used as a
measure of a student’s ability to communicate, analyze complex information, utilize appropriate
legal terminology, identify key concepts and procedures, and utilize appropriate norms of
citation and style commonly used in the field. Based on these, the following rubric was applied
to a stratified random sample of the artifacts collected (approximately 15% of all submissions).
4. For the internships, a supervisor evaluation form was sent out for each student who
completed an internship in the 2012-2013 school year, by Career Services, with copies of those
returned sent to the department. Responses to these surveys were to be reviewed by the
assessment committee. The assessment committee found that due to the transition between
department chairs, the copies that were returned to the department by career services had not
been preserved in a file by the department secretary. Therefore there were no copies of the
employer evaluation forms available for the committee to be reviewed during this assessment
period.
B) Who was assessed?
For criminal procedure, the artifacts were collected from students enrolled in 3 sections of the
course with one section being regular Ellensburg classroom, another section comprised of online
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major students and a third section online that had a combination of center and Ellensburg
students.
C) When was it assessed?
The course assessment artifacts were collected during winter quarter 2013. The analysis of the
assessments was performed in November 2013.
3. What was learned?
Rubric for Criminal Procedure Case Brief (LAJ 302)
Skill Assessed
Demonstrate Communication Skills (writing)
Scale
0 = skill not demonstrated
1 = artifact is understandable but not
organized or conveyed appropriately
2 = communication skills clearly
demonstrated
3 = excellent communication skills
Demonstrate the ability to analyze a legal case.
0 = skill not demonstrated
1 = student attempted to analyze legal case
2 = student demonstrates appropriate ability
to analyze a legal case
3 = above average analysis of legal case
Correctly uses appropriate legal terminology.
0 = skill not demonstrated
1 = Legal terminology used but student
understanding of issue not clear
2 = adequate use of appropriate legal
terminology
3 = above average use of appropriate legal
terminology
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Identify legal issues related to substantive law
(holding).
0 = skill not demonstrated
1 = student mentions issues related to
substantive law, but does not explain well
2 = student discusses issues related to
substantive law and displays and adequate
understanding of the topic
3 = student displays an above average
understanding of substantive law
Identify procedural law history of the case.
0 = skill not demonstrated
1 = student mentions issues related to
procedural law, but does not explain well
2 = student discusses issues related to
procedural law and displays and adequate
understanding of the topic
3 = student displays an above average
understanding of procedural law
Use of appropriate references and consistent
referencing style
0 = skill not demonstrated
1 = attempt at referencing, but incorrect
and/or inconsistent
2 = consistent referencing used throughout
brief with some minor errors
3 = near perfect referencing
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Table 1: Score Frequencies, Means, and Standard Deviations for Sample
Skill Assessed
N
Score = 1
Score = 2
Score = 3
Mean/SD
Communication skills
15
1 (6.7%)
10 (66.7%)
4 (26.7%)
2.20
(.560)
Ability to analyze case
15
5 (33.3%)
5 (33.3%)
5 (33.3%)
2.00
(.845)
Use of appropriate legal
terminology
15
Identification of legal issues
15
4 (26.7%)
6 (40.0%)
5 (33.3%)
2.067
(.798)
7 (46.7%)
4 (26.7%)
4 (26.7%)
1.80
(.861)
Identification of case
history
15
Use of appropriate
reference style
15
5 (33.3%)
5 (33.3%)
5 (33.3%)
2.00
(.845)
6 (40.0%)
4 (26.7%)
5 (33.3%)
1.933
(.883)
Table 1 displays the frequencies of scores for the sample in each of the major domains (skills
assessed). In addition, the last column represents the mean and standard deviation for each of
the domains. The mean acts as a data reduction statistic; it helps to demonstrate the average
score for each domain. The standard deviation indicates the distribution of scores; the larger
the standard deviation, the more variation in scores (hence, higher standard deviations indicate
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less consistency between scores where as lower standard deviations indicate more consistency
in scores). It is worth noting that none of the artifacts were assigned a score of zero (“not
demonstrated”) in any of the domains.
The data in table 1 indicates that the students, as a whole, tend to center right around a score of
two. The highest average score in the data was the “communication skills” domain with a mean
of 2.20 and the lowest average score was “identification of legal issues” with a mean 1.80.
Overall, this indicates that scores tend to center right round a score of two with little variation.
When examining the standard deviations between the domains, all but the communication skills
were very similar (ranging from .798 in “use of appropriate legal terminology to .883 in “use of
appropriate reference style”). The only domain assessed that deviates from this range was
“communication skills” with a standard deviation of .560. This is because a majority of cases
(66.7%) centered on a score of 2. Other than “communication skills” the scores for these
artifacts demonstrated wide variation (it is also worth noting that again, this was also the
highest mean between the different domains). This indicates that in this sample of 15 times,
there was a broad range of ability or performance demonstrated by students.
Table 2: Score Frequencies, Means, and Standard Deviations for Sample
Online Sections Only (Online Program and Pierce)
Skill Assessed
N
Score = 1
Score = 2
Score = 3
Mean/SD
Communication skills
10
1 (10%)
6 (60%)
3 (30%)
2.20
(.632)
Ability to analyze case
10
5 (50%)
2 (20%)
3 (30%)
1.80
(.918)
Use of appropriate legal
terminology
10
Identification of legal issues
10
3 (30%)
4 (40%)
3 (30%)
2.00
(.816)
5 (50%)
2 (20%)
3 (30%)
1.80
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(.918)
Identification of case
history
10
Use of appropriate
reference style
10
3 (30%)
4 (40%)
3 (30%)
2.00
(.816)
5 (50%)
2 (20%)
3 (30%)
1.80
(.918)
Table 3: Score Frequencies, Means, and Standard Deviations for Sample:
In Person Sections Only (Ellensburg)
Skill Assessed
N
Score = 1
Score = 2
Score = 3
Mean/SD
Communication skills
5
0 (0%)
4 (80%)
1 (20%)
2.20
(.447)
Ability to analyze case
5
0 (0%)
3 (60%)
2 (40%)
2.40
(.547)
Use of appropriate legal
terminology
5
1 (20%)
2 (40%)
2 (40%)
2.20
(.836)
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Identification of legal issues
5
2 (40%)
2 (40%)
1 (20%)
1.80
(.836)
Identification of case
history
5
Use of appropriate
reference style
5
2 (40%)
1 (20%)
2 (40%)
2.00
(1.00)
1 (20%)
2 (40%)
2 (40%)
2.20
(.836)
Tables 2 and 3 disaggregate the data found in table 1 based on online section (N = 10) and in
person sections (N = 5). When we compare the means for each of the six domains between the
online sections and the on campus section, we find that online students and on campus
students tied on three domains (“communication skills”, “identification of legal issues”, and
identification of case history”). However, the artifacts obtained from on campus students
outscored the online students in the remaining three domains (“ability to analyze case” with a
mean difference of .60, “use of appropriate legal terminology” with a mean difference of .20,
and “identification of legal issues” with a mean difference of .40). While there is a difference
between these groups in the three domains, it is important to note that this is not a statistically
significant difference (tests of statistical significance were conducted to verify this claim,
however, the data is not presented in this paper).
4. What will the department or program do as a result of that information?
1) The LAJ assessment committee will meet with all faculty members and share and discuss the
findings.
2) Due to the change in class size for LAJ 300, the assessment committee will be reviewing and
updating our assessment plan and be making recommendations for other methods of assessing
that course.
3. The committee will recommend to the department that there be a better system established
to archive the employer assessment documents received from Career Services so that they can
be preserved for assessment.
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4. As has been observed in prior assessments, inconsistency in the assignment used for the
artifact creates a variation from class to class making it difficult for there to be uniformity in the
application of the rubric due to this variation in the artifact submitted. This will be something
that the assessment committee will review and address in future recommendations.
5. The assessment committee also will request additional members. Currently, there are only
two people on the committee with the loss of two faculty members over the past two years
reducing the committee from four members to only two.
5. What did the department or program do in response to last year’s assessment information?
1. Faculty members discussed teaching methods and other ways of assessing outcomes at
department meetings.
2. The department made a recent curriculum change regarding legal research. It was decided
to take the course out of the core curriculum and establish a capstone course.
6. Questions or suggestions concerning Assessment of Student Learning at Central Washington
University:
The Law and Justice Department Assessment Committee would be very interested in learning
about best practices in assessment from other departments.
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