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: __2013-2104_________ College: _____COTS________
Department ______Geology_________ Program: _____Geology B.S., Environmental Geology,
B.S., and Geology B.A._
1. What student learning outcomes were assessed this year, and why?
We are in the process of refining two assessment tools that address the following three outcomes:
1. Students will be able to calculate quantitative problems in the discipline.
2. Students will be able to interpret representations of data, including graphs, maps, cross-sections.
3a. Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of core areas of geology (Geology B.A. and B.S.).
3b. Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of core areas of environmental geology, e.g. processes
and risks associated with natural and anthropogenic environmental hazards (Environmental Geology B.S.).
2. How were they assessed?
We used two assessment tools in core courses at the beginning of our program (GEOL 210, Intro to Field Methods)
and at the end of our program (GEOL 487, End-of-Major Review). The GEOL 200 course is taught fall term and
had 16 students. The GEOL 487 course was taught in the winter and had 12 students.
To assess outcome 1 above, we used the same math assessment tool that we have used in previous years (attached).
This tool assesses a few basic skills and knowledge in a few areas (e.g. scientific notation, exponents, simple
algebra, trigonometry and geometry). As described below, we are working on refining our assessment tool so that it
is more specific to geology and so that it incorporates a larger range of math areas.
The second assessment tool is a Geoscience Literacy Exam (GLE), that was developed by the assessment team for
InTeGrate (Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth for a Sustainable Future), an NSF-funded program that promotes
geoscience teaching in the context of societal issues. The GLE is based on the four literacy documents developed by
the scientific communities of Earth, atmospheric, climate, and ocean scientists. These documents can be viewed at
http://nagt.org/nagt/teaching_resources/literacies.html. The InTeGrate assessment team developed a set of three
questions to go with each big idea or essential principle: a level 1 question with a single multiple choice answer, a
level 2 question with a multiple-answer multiple choice question, and an essay question with a 3-pt rubric spelled
out. For our department assessment tool, we selected 24 of the multiple choice questions at levels 1 and 2 and three
essay questions. These questions are meant to measure geoscience literacy as defined by the community of
scientists. Although this is a fairly basic level for our majors, we chose it as a good starting point to see what we
could learn from this tool. We are in the process of deciding how we should define proficiency with this new tool.
3. What was learned?
In terms of outcome 1, what we have been seeing for years is that, despite taking math courses through Calculus II,
many of our students do not have a solid knowledge of basic concepts. In particular, they consistently miss questions
that require knowledge of exponent laws and thus have problems with metric system calculations. They also have
trouble solving fairly basic algebra equations and do not all have the area of a circle committed to memory.
For our new GLE assessment tool, we compared in detail the results for the GEOL 210 students versus the GEOL
487, thinking that we should at least see some improvement in geoscience literacy between the two levels. The
results of this analysis are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 -- Geoscience Literacy Exam Results
Comparision of score between 210 and 487
Question #
210
487
Multiple Choice
%
%
% difference
1
81
92
11
2
68
31
-37
3
44
100
56
4
6
62
56
5
56
69
13
6
44
15
-29
7
94
100
6
8
85
92
7
9
100
92
-8
10
60
15
-45
11
56
62
6
12
88
38
-50
13
81
100
19
14
77
15
-62
15
77
62
-15
16
38
31
-7
17
92
92
0
18
88
100
12
19
78
62
-16
20
63
46
-17
21
5
0
-5
22
81
69
-12
23
59
53
-6
24
58
38
-20
Short Answer
25-210
25-487
difference
3pts
%
6
23
17
2pts
%
19
38
19
1pt
%
31
31
0
0pts
%
44
8
-36
26-210
26-487
difference
38
69
31
31
23
-8
12
8
-4
19
0
-19
Overall Class Average
210
56%
487
54%
difference
-2%
In this table, the % difference column shows the change between Geology 210, the sophomore-level course, and
Geology 487, a senior-level course. Note that it is comparing two different sets of students in the same year, not the
same students over time. One notable result is that there are clearly questions that the GEOL 210 students did
considerably better in (questions 2, 6, 10, 12) and questions that the GEOL 487 students did better in (questions 3,
4). The Geology 487 did substantially better in both of the short answer questions. As described below, we are
currently looking in detail at the questions on our assessment tool to try to understand why one set of students did
better than another on a given question.
4. What will the department or program do as a result of that information?
Based on both the departmental assessment as well as assessment data from individual classes, we know that our
students are not as strong as we would like in quantitative skills and continue to work to improve our students’
quantitative skills by a number of means: 1) We added math prerequisites to a number of classes forcing students to
take their math requirements earlier. We are now working to incorporate more quantitative activities that use the
specific math level into these courses. 2) We are preparing a new math assessment that is more specific to geological
problems and links to our Quantitative Methods course (GEOL 305). 3) We have examined all of our classes in
terms of the type of math skills that are needed for each one (which courses require algebra, statistics, calculus, etc.).
The attached table (below the math assessment) summarizes this analysis. Our revised math assessment will have
assessment tools related to each area. We plan to use these tools at various points in the major to measure student
progress. We will also collaborate on how we incorporate these quantitative skills so that we can help students make
connections between different courses and set expectations for increasing mastery of these skills.
For the Geoscience Literacy Exam, we are currently examining the exam results in detail to try to understand what
they are telling us. In particular, we are looking at the questions that the sophomore-level class did better on. In
some cases (question 2), this may be because the content for the question had been taught to them very recently. In
other cases (possibly question 6), the older students are over-thinking the multiple-choice question. Once we have
better understood these results, we will take two approaches: 1) refine our assessment tool so that it better measures
the skills and knowledge we want to assess; 2) adjust our curriculum and course assignments in order to improve
student performance, particularly in the senior-level class.
5. What did the department or program do in response to last year’s assessment
information?
Because of a general concern for our students’ writing skills that is also reflected in our assessment of writing, we
have added a new elective course, Communicating Geoscience (GEOL 306).The course description is as follows:
“Exploration of effective communication skills in the geosciences. Includes readings from the primary and popular
literature, writing, making figures, and oral presentation. Emphasis on peer review and revision.” This course will be
offered for the first time next winter (2016). In GEOL 306, we hope to work on both oral and written
communication skills. We will assess students at the beginning and end of this course to determine the areas of
improvement and track these students in our departmental writing assessment to see if they perform better than their
peers who have not taken this elective.
For the graduate students, we feel that our current emphasis on writing literature reviews in GEOL 502, including
the rubrics that we use for those assignments, are fairly successful. In two of our required graduate courses, we work
with the students a great deal on writing. It did not appear that any action is needed as a result of the 2012-2013
assessment for the M.S. program other than continuing with what is working.
6. Questions or suggestions concerning Assessment of Student Learning at Central
Washington University:
Name ________________________________
Geol 487 Math Assessment (NO CALCULATORS)
This is to help us learn about our majors’ ‘working knowledge’ of elementary mathematics.
Name, City, State of High School _______________________________________
Geology Degree: _____________________________
Date & name of last Math class_______________________________
1. Arithmetic
(a) 1/0.1 =
(b) 2 3 =
(c) 641/ 2 =
(d) 2-2 =
(e)
25 ´10 3
=
5 ´10-5
(f) SHOW WORK 231/7 =
2. Express in scientific notation
(a) 0.00012
(b) 300,000
GO TO NEXT PAGE
3. Geometry and Trigonometry
(a) The formula for the area of a circle is:
(b) Using the diagram at the right, cos  =
Circle the correct answer
_a_
_a_
_d_
b
c
a
_ b_
c
_c_
b
4. Algebra
(a) PV = nRT
Solve for T.
(b) y = __x__
(1-x)
Solve for x.
(c) _a_ = _b_
x
c
Solve for x in terms of a, b, and c.
DONE! THANKS!!!
logical
course
Analysis
Basics
Functions
Statistics
current
Multivariable
and
pre-
Functions
Probability
calculus
rec's
3 of the
101
yes
b's
3 of the
103
yes
b's
3 of the
107
yes
b's
3 of the
108
yes
b's
all of the
200
yes
b's
210
yes
-----
f-4
3 of the
302
305
320
346
yes
yes
yes
yes
b's
all of
f-1, f-2,
athe b's
f-3
all of the
f-1, f-2,f-
b's
3
all of the
f-1, f-2,
b's
f-3, f-4
mf-1,
sp-1
b's
f-1, f-4,
mf-1,
sp-1, sp-3
all of the
f-1, f-3,
sp-1, sp-2,
b's
f-4
sp-3
sp-1, sp-3
all of the
360
370
yes
yes
all of the
380
yes
b's
sp-1?
all of the
377
yes
386
yes
388
yes
415
423
yes
yes
b's
all of the
f-1, f-2,
b's
f-3
sp-1,?
all of the
all of the
sp-1, sp-2,
b's
f's
mf-1, mf-4
sp-3, sp-3
all of the
sp-1, sp-2,
b's
sp-3
100-C
425
yes
all of the
f-1, f-2,
all of the
b's
f-3, f-5
sp's
all of the
432
yes
b's
mf-1, mf-3,
f-3, f-4
mf-5
sp-1, sp-4
all of the
434
yes
b's
f-3, f-4
all of the
441
445
452
453
yes
yes
yes
yes
b's
f-1, f-4
all of the
f-1, f-2,
b's
f-3, f-5
mf-1
sp's
all of the
all of the
all of the
all of the
all of
b's
f's
mf's
sp's
the c's
all of the
all of the
all of the
b's
f's
mf's
logical
course
454
Analysis
yes
456
yes
463
yes
474
yes
Basics
Functions
all of the
154
154
all of
sp-1
the c's
173
Statistics
current
Multivariable
and
pre-
Functions
Probability
all of the
all of athe
b's
sp's
all of the
all of the
b's
f's
all of the
f-1, f-2,
sp-1, sp-3,
b's
f-3,
sp-3
calculus
rec's
all of
mf-1, mf-4
the c's
co-172
b-2, b-6,
475
yes
b-7
all of the
478
480
yes
b's
yes
all of the
sp-1, sp-2,
b's
sp-3
all of the
483
484
la
yes
b's
yes
all of the
f-2, f-3,
b's
f-4
logical analysis
la-1
sp-4
problem solving
sp-2, sp-4
153
c-1, c-2
172
b
basic
b-1
graphing, graph interpretation, rates
b-2
unit conversion
b-3
dimensional analysis
b-4
back of the envelope, sanity check, order of magnitude
qualitative understanding of algebraic equations, and how varying variables affects
f
mf
b-5
unknown
b-6
sig-figs
b-7
measurements, accuracy and precision
functions
f-1
dependent vs independent variables
f-2
separation of variables (solve for x)
f-3
types of functions (linear, power, exponential, logarithmic)
f-4
periodic (trig)
f-5
solving systems of equations
multivariable functions
mf-1
vectors