Program Assessment Report
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Date submitted: May 7, 2012
Degree Program(s):
MA History
Department:
History
Department Chair:
Patricia Evridge Hill
Phone:
4-5755
Report Prepared by:
Patricia Evridge Hill
Phone:
4-5755
AY 2014-2015
E-mail:
Patricia.Hill@sjsu.edu
Next Self-Study due :
Note: Schedule is posted at: http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/programplanning/
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Location:
DMH 134
Person to Contact:
(Bldg/Room #)
Diana Baker
(408) 924-5500
(Name)
(Phone)
Assessment schedule is posted at http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/assessment
Please send any changes to the schedule or to student learning outcomes to Jackie Snell
jacqueline.snell@sjsu.edu
By the time students complete their Master of Arts degree program in
history, students should be able to:
3. Exhibit sensitivities to human values in their own and other
cultural traditions.
In 2010—when we began assessing a single SLO each year—the department’s graduate committee
decided to assess the MA program via students’ culminating experiences, since there is no single course
or set of courses that all graduate students in our program take. Students specializing in
Ancient/Medieval history write theses. Those specializing in Modern Europe or the United States take
comprehensive examinations unless they are applying to doctoral programs and the department’s
graduate committee has approved their thesis proposals. All students pursuing the MA with a
Concentration in History Education (CHE), whether specializing in US History or World History take
comprehensive examinations.
Initial Evidence of Student Learning:
[Prior to F11]
In F11, eleven MA students took the Plan B comprehensive written exam in three areas: US History to 1865, US
History from 1865 to present, and Modern European History. There were no completed theses in Ancient/Medieval
History. For the first time in several years, every student passed the Plan B exam. This indicates that students’
mastery of the learning objective was well underway prior to the F11 semester. Since most take a final class or two
during the semester they sit for the comprehensive exam, however, their learning was likely enhanced throughout
F11.
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Program Assessment Report
Change(s) to Curriculum or Pedagogy:
[F11]
Carefully selected exam questions enable us to evaluate students’ sensitivities to human values in their own and
other cultural traditions. On all three exams, students have a choice of questions, so their responses vary. Since ten
of eleven students took the F11 exam in US History and an exam on Modern European History ensures that students
immerse themselves in other cultural traditions, we based this year’s assessment on the ten US History
examinations.
In both halves of the US History Plan B exam, most students mainly discussed their own cultural traditions, but they
also examined complex cultural interactions in the colonies and early republic and the history of
racial/ethnic/religious minority populations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. In the first half of the
exam this fall, students had the opportunity to answer a question on the relationship between Native people and
European colonists. The question asked them to describe the religious, economic, and imperial dimension of this
relationship during the seventeenth century and the transformation of that interaction during the period of the
American Revolution. In addition, the first half of the exam always contains a question on slavery. This time,
students addressed the concept of “paternalism” and the effect of this ideology on the lives of free and enslaved
people. Furthermore, there was a question on the lives of colonial women from New England to the Caribbean
colonies. All three of these questions asked students to consider the interplay of the values of both their own and
other cultural traditions. The remainder of the questions on this half of the exam involved American cultural values
and traditions, including the causes and consequences of the Revolution, the debates over the drafting of the US
Constitution, the effects of early nineteenth-century industrialization, and the causes of the Civil War. All of these
questions require MA students to think carefully and critically about the roots of American social, economic, legal,
and ideological principles.
The second half of the US History Plan B exam also asked students to demonstrate their sensitivities to human
values. A question on Reconstruction required students to evaluate efforts to promote racial equality. A question on
the industrial revolution of the Gilded Age requested specific examples of social and intellectual discontent.
Students who chose the question on the field of western history considered whether or not the American West was
truly a source of opportunity, democracy and self-reliance as one historian has posited. Other questions asked
students to evaluate Progressive Era reforms, New Deal legislation, and U.S. foreign policy. A well-rounded answer
must address the social and cultural impact of political ideology and legislation. Another question asked about the
domestic consequences of the Cold War. Students must consider whether or not the fight against communism posed
any dangers for American values and institutions and how it affected politics and culture. A question on the
ideology of domesticity again asked students to evaluate how cultural values impacted the lives of women and how
they have changed over time. Finally, students could choose to address the nature of the Civil Rights movement and
thus engage the cultural values of a minority population.
Evidence of Student Learning after Change.
[by the end of F11]
Three students took the first half of the exam. Two chose to answer the question on interactions between colonists
and indigenous peoples. One student asserted that a leading historian has argued persuasively “that the contact of
newcomer and native cultures came together to form a new, hybridized culture.” The other discussed how the
relationship “was one of negotiation. A new land demanded adaptations of Old World customs just as Native
Americans had to adapt to outsiders.” Both provided specific examples of this hybridized culture based on
negotiation. All three students answered the question on the causes and consequences of the American Revolution,
and they all focused on religious changes in the Great Awakening that led to shifting political values and the
questioning of authority, which according to one exam, “led to the end of traditional modes of deference.” All three
also discussed the causes of the Civil War and effectively showed how the social, ideological, political, economic,
and legal tensions between a free and slave society served as a catalyst for armed conflict. One student examined
industrialization and how the market revolution altered not only economic decisions and orientation, but family
structure and culture. She discussed changing roles for women and the rise of middle class values.
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Program Assessment Report
Seven MA students took the second half of the Plan B Exam, and their exams covered a wider range of questions.
One student argued, “the Cold War has stifled U.S. high and popular culture, colored our education system, fostered
a fear-based society, created recessions, global unrest and ultimately has made us question who we are and what we
want to be.” Another added that the Cold War initiated a “social revolution that forced Americans to reevaluate core
values.” A third response noted that Cold War “values and views manifested themselves in increased military
intervention, which led to increased military spending, which took money away from many liberal reforms and
social services.” Several students addressed the question on US foreign policy. One wrote, “more evidence,
however, supports the view that the US has gone into the world ‘to protect and defend’ US economic interests.”
One student discussed the Progressive Era and two the Gilded Age industrial revolution, and all three noted that
while corporations and some elements of the population benefited, prevailing conceptions of race and gender limited
the impact for other groups, namely women and African Americans.
Two particularly strong answers on domesticity and one weaker but passing essay all addressed not just middle class
white women, but white and black women’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement as an example of women’s
shifting roles and political awareness and as an impetus for the Women’s Rights Movement. Five students tackled
the question on the Civil Rights Movement and all defined it as a “bottom-up” social movement. One noted that
though the government eventually responded, “the actions of the organized masses of African Americans and other
Americans were needed,” while another emphasized “grassroots organization and student participation.” The
students described the church as an institution that fostered African American leadership and the fight for social
justice. Similarly, three students discussed the failures of Reconstruction following the Civil War, but noted the
importance of black agency and formation of African American churches.
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