Exhibit 2.4.g.17 Secondary Education MEd Comprehensive Data Analysis Report (DAR) Summary 20112013
AY11:
1.
Have the change(s) in response to data that you documented last year had the
desired effect on your program? Please provide specifics referencing prior changes that you
submitted in [AY 2009-2010].
Two steps were taken in response to an analysis of data from AY 2009-2010.
A) Due to the lower ratings in education policy (2.2 of 5) and writing strategies (2.4 of 5) for
incoming students, the program director incorporated greater attention to current issues in
education policy and more awareness about strategies for writing. For EDUC 601 Concepts
and Issues in Education, instructors were asked to revise their syllabi to add more emphasis
to education policy in local, state, and federal contexts. Beyond existing coursework, the
program newsletter was reorganized to place a higher premium on current issues in
education policy rather than more generic advising information. The program director
worked our Graduate Assistant to add more education policy content to our program
newsletter. In addition, the core faculty were asked to strongly encourage all students to
make use of face-to-face writing support on campus as well as writing support online.
B) Due to the low response rate for the Post Graduate Survey, the program director contacted
the Graduate School office that administers the survey. Alternative formats and incentives
were explored to improve the overall response rate. However, due to a system error, the
Graduate School did not distribute and did not collect the Post-Graduate Survey for AY
2009-2010 for our program graduates.
2.
What significant findings emerge from your examination of these data?
A) Those admitted in AY 2010-2011 had the lowest incoming average GPA (3.12) compared the
average GPAs for the last four years of entering classes. This is significant because it
suggests that the incoming students may be less well-prepared for graduate-level work than
students admitted in previous years.
B) Data from the self-assessment survey indicate that students’ incoming perception of their
ability to [11.a] access to relevant research and evaluate of the quality of research has
declined. In three years, the average score for [11.a] access to relevant research and
evaluate of the quality of research fell from 3.1 (2008) to 2.3 (2010).
C) The program is pleased to announce that data from the program completions survey
indicate that students’ perception of their ability to [6.a] access to relevant research and
evaluate of the quality of research and [6.b] apply research findings to improve practice has
increased. In four years, the average score for [6.a] access to relevant research and evaluate
of the quality of research improved from 3.5 (2007) to 3.9 (2010). Also, the average score
for [6.b] apply research findings to improve practice increased from 3.4 (2007) to 3.7 (2010).
D) From AY 2009-2010 to 2010-2011, the response rate for our Self-Assessment Survey has
dropped.
3.
How have you involved faculty in your identification of the implications of these data?
Monthly meetings of the faculty are used to bring data updates to their attention and
engage them in discussion to identify implications of the data as well as action priorities.
4. What specific actions will you take in response to these data? (REQUIRED response to NCATE
AFI)
A) With the lower average GPA for the 2010-2011 incoming class, the students may be more
likely to need academic support in order to succeed in graduate school. With the
reorganization of the Graduate School, the program director will carefully monitor the
academic performance of all students—especially those with a lower GPA upon entrance to
the program.
B) The decline of incoming students’ perception of their ability to [11.a] access to relevant
research and evaluate of the quality of research is troubling. While the program deserves
credit for high marks in this category at the end of the program, this incoming class may
need additional support in our core research methods courses: EDUC 605 and EDUC 761.
The program director will contact instructors of these research courses to alert them to the
potential weakness of incoming students and to ask that they provide continuing academic
support in this area.
C) The response rate for the Self-Assessment survey needs to be raised so that the data are
more representative of our incoming students. The survey was digitized in 2009 as an
attempt to reduce our paper consumption, but it appears that some new students are not
completing the survey online. As such, we need to resurrect the paper version of the survey
in order to improve the response rate. As the academic advisor, the program director will
require incoming students to complete a paper version of the self-assessment survey prior
to or during the initial advising session.
AY12:
1.
Have the change(s) in response to data that you documented last year had the
desired effect on your program? Please provide specifics referencing prior changes that you
submitted in [AY 2010-2011].
Two steps were taken in response to an analysis of data from AY 2010-2011.
A) With the lower average GPA for the 2010-2011 incoming class, the program director
monitored and tracked (at the close of each academic term) the academic performance of
all students—especially those new students with a lower GPA upon entrance to the
program. One new student, who entered conditionally with a 2.8 GPA, did struggle in two
initial classes. The program director worked directly with the student’s instructors to
provide additional writing support and to connect the student with the campus Writing
Center. Because other graduate programs have also noticed more students needing
assistance with writing, the graduate program directors are exploring the possibility of hiring
a writing tutor as a Graduate Assistant, who could provide individualized support for fellow
graduate students.
B) The decline of incoming students’ perception of their ability to [11.a] access to relevant
research and evaluate of the quality of research was troubling. While the program deserves
credit for high marks in this category at the end of the program, this incoming class may
need additional support in our core research methods courses: EDUC 605 and EDUC 761.
The program director contacted instructors of these research courses to alert them to the
potential weakness of incoming students and to ask that they provide continuing academic
support in this area. The program director also contacted Claire Holmes, Library Liaison to
the College and Education, to help students navigate the Cook Library Research Portal and
to help them identify and access the most germane scholarly journals for educational
research.
2.
What significant findings emerge from your examination of these data?
A) The average rating for “Write effectively and professionally to share solutions, research
data, and other information with key constituents” has declined from 2.8 (2011) to 2.5
(2012) where 4 is the highest rating. This is significant because this represents a downward
trend to the nadir of 2.5 as the average rating in 2009. This suggests that there continues to
be a need to provide more writing assistance for students.
B) Data from the self-assessment survey indicate that students’ incoming perception of their
ability to [11.a] access to relevant research and evaluate of the quality of research has
declined. In four years, the average score for [11.a] access to relevant research and evaluate
of the quality of research fell from 3.1 (2008) to 2.1 (2012).
C) The program is pleased to announce that the average GPA for new students rose from 3.12
in 2011 to 3.33 in 2012.
3.
How have you involved faculty in your identification of the implications of these
data?
Three meetings of the graduate faculty are used to bring data updates to their attention and
engage them in discussion to identify implications of the data as well as action priorities.
4.
What specific actions will you take in response to these data? (REQUIRED
response to NCATE AFI)
A) The decline of incoming students’ perception of their ability to [11.a] access to relevant
research and evaluate of the quality of research continues to be troubling. While the
program deserves credit for high marks (3.8/4.0) in this category at the end of the
program, the incoming class may need additional support in our core research methods
courses: EDUC 605 and EDUC 761. The program director will again work directly with
instructors of these research courses to alert them to the potential weakness of incoming
students and to ask that they and Claire Holmes, Research Librarian of Cook Library,
provide continuing academic support in this area.
AY13:
1. Have the change(s) in response to data that you documented last year
had the desired effect on your program? Please provide specifics referencing prior changes that you
submitted in [AY 2011-2012].
Yes, one step was taken in response to an analysis of data from AY 2011-2012.
The decline of incoming students’ perception of their ability to [11.a] access to relevant research
and evaluate of the quality of research prompted the program director to reach out to the
program’s instructors about this concern. Because the incoming class needed additional support
in our core research methods courses such as EDUC 605, the program director contacted
instructors of the first research course to alert them to the potential weakness of incoming
students and to ask that they provide continuing academic support in this area. The program
director also contacted Claire Holmes, Library Liaison to the College and Education, to help
students navigate the Cook Library Research Portal and to help them identify and access the
most germane scholarly journals for educational research.
2.
What significant findings emerge from your examination of these data?
E) Students, who completed the program this year, rated themselves somewhat lower on their
abilities to work with diverse students [(2.a) Recognize diversity among students and adjust
instruction accordingly, and (2.b) Recognize learners’ developmental differences and adjust
instruction accordingly] as compared to the average rating of their abilities with technology,
assessment, and other areas. This is important because the program is undergoing a
redesign that should strengthen and enhance students’ ability to work with diverse
students.
F) Those admitted in AY 2011-2012 had a higher average entry GPA (3.33) than the average for
AY 2010-2011 (3.12, the lowest incoming average for the last five years of entering classes).
This is significant because it suggests that the incoming students may be somewhat betterprepared for graduate-level work than students admitted in previous years. Still, the
average entry GPA for incoming students has varied considerably in recent years.
G) The students, who completed the program, rated themselves highly (3.8/4.0) for their ability
to “access relevant research and evaluate quality of research.” This may in part reflect the
program’s two-year efforts to strengthen the development of students’ research skills with
outreach to the university library staff and with closer cooperation with instructors of our
core research courses: EDUC 605 and EDUC 761.
3.
How have you involved faculty in your identification of the implications
of these data?
Two meetings of the graduate program faculty were used to bring data updates to their
attention and engage them in discussion to identify implications of the data as well as action
priorities.
4. What specific actions will you take in response to these data?
(REQUIRED response to NCATE AFI)
A) While the M.Ed. program redesign is intended to address the shifting educational landscape
with the advent of Common Core, PARCC, and TPA, the redesign will be shaped by program
evaluation data of recent years that suggest our students need deeper knowledge and
stronger skills as they work with an increasingly diverse student population. This is a top
priority for our program, and we will explore the integration of new learning experiences in
relation to differentiating instruction for diverse students in general and for English
Language Learners in particular.
B) To ensure an academically stronger set of students in our program going forward, the
admissions requirements will be changed for Spring 2014 when the program considers new
applicants for admission to the revised program. The admissions requirement for GPA will
be raised from 3.0 to 3.15, and the minimum GPA for conditional admission will be raised
from 2.75 to 2.9. We are quite mindful that any change in the admissions requirements may
have an adverse effect on the diversity of our applicant pool, and thus ultimately on the
diversity of our program’s students. We know that the diversity of our students adds greatly
to our students’ learning and overall experience in our program. As such, the new, higher
GPA requirement will be considered a pilot program for Spring 2014. We will carefully
monitor the diversity of our applicant pool and those admitted in Spring 2014 to examine
whether this change affects the diversity of applicants. To do so, we will work the Graduate
School admissions office to examine demographic statistics for our program applicants. In
the summer of 2014, we will reassess whether the higher GPA standard pilot program shall
be ended, amended, or continued.
C) Based on the multi-year concerns about our students’ readiness for graduate-level writing,
the new admissions requirements for Spring 2014 will include two essays. The first essay will
be a Statement of Purpose where the applicant concisely explains her/his professional and
personal goals. The second essay will be a response to a prompt that will give applicants the
opportunity to demonstrate their writing and critical thinking skills. These essays are less of
screening tool to eliminate prospective students, and more of a diagnostic tool to alert the
program director to new students who may need additional writing support in tandem with
their initial graduate courses.
Unlike many peer programs on campus and elsewhere, Towson’s M.Ed. program historically
has not required essays for admission. While we do not seek to make the admissions
process more cumbersome, we do seek to ensure that students arrive with a sharp,
professional focus and an immediate awareness of the vital importance of writing for
success in graduate school.