SJSU Annual Assessment Report
Academic Year 2012-2013
Electronic Copy of Report Due July 1, 2013
Send to Undergraduate Studies (Kim.Huynh@sjsu.edu), with cc: to your College
Associate Dean and College Assessment Facilitator
Department/Program
Contact Person
History/Bachelor of Arts
George L. Vásquez
Program Accreditation (if any)
Date of Report:
email george.vasquez@sjsu.edu
May 30, 2013
Phone (408) 924-5528
None
Please refer to expanded instructions for each item. The narrative portion of the report should not
exceed four pages. Appendices should be included as part of the report.
1.
Overview and Context:
The History Department assesses undergraduate learning through the three courses of its
core/skills sequence (Hist. 99, Hist. 100W, and Hist. 102). These are the only courses that
all SJSU History majors must take. Each course in the sequence is significantly more
challenging. Instructors of these courses meet several times each year to discuss
assignments and ensure that each course in the sequence is appropriately targeted. The
department has moved away from common assignments altogether so that instructors can
experiment with new methods, exercises, and techniques. For the last four years – since
we began assessing a single SLO each year [#1, 2009-10: Students analyze critically the
thesis and argument/interpretation of the following types of historical literature in western
and non-western fields in pre-modern and modern history: Narrative history,
Historiography/Intellectual history, Social/Cultural history, Political/Diplomatic history; #2,
2010-11: Using modern bibliographic data storage sites and systems and traditional (print)
sources, students systematically collect and appraise the historical significance and use
of evidence of various kinds of primary sources in western and non-western fields in premodern and modern history: Government documents, Histories/Historical Accounts,
Literature and Poetry, Images, Autobiographies, Diaries, Letters, Newspapers, Maps,
Quantitative Data, Oral Interviews; #3, 2011-12: Using historical literature and primary
sources of the types listed above, students write essays in western and non-western fields
in pre-modern and modern history according to the standards of technique, citation, essay
composition (writing process), argument/interpretation, and use of evidence which are
consistent with college-level writing in the discipline; #4, 2012-13: Students identify and
analyze the fundamental problems of historical interpretation and recognize some of the
“schools” of historical analysis in western and non-western fields across historical time]
instructors in each section of the core/skills classes prepared an assessment report
specific to that class. The department chair based this report on those analyses.
2.
Use of Prior Assessment/Closing the Loop:
The major change implemented by the History Department in the past year occurred in
Hist. 99 during the 2013 spring semester. Here the “core” instructor, Laura Guardino,
wrote: “I did modify the course in the spring to spend more time on teaching the
organizing of ideas and the structuring of an interpretative argument. In the fall semester I
spent class time on the construction of the bones essay. In the spring semester the class
focused much more on the graphic organizer and from that the development of the
detailed outline. I believe this change in focus resulted in a better-organized draft with
more interpretation.” Statistics support this instructor’s conclusion as there was a 95%
completion of graphic organizers and detailed outlines in the spring section of Hist. 99,
while the figure for the fall semester was only 88%.
3.
Assessment Data:
The assessment of the 4th-year targeted PLO – “Students identify and analyze the
fundamental problems of historical interpretation and recognize some of the ‘schools’ of
historical analysis in western and non-western fields across historical time” – is done
primarily in the third course of our core sequence, Hist. 102 (Historiography). Here are
some specifics:
a. specific methodologies & measures
Besides oral questions and answers in the classroom, both instructors –- Drs.
Pickering and Vásquez – use weekly quizzes, oral reports on historians, term papers,
and examinations to assess the learning comprehension of students enrolled in
Historiography.
i.
Weekly quizzes on the 100-150 pages of reading a week are given as a first
pass to insure that students are keeping up with the reading assignments and
comprehending some of the challenging issues and interpretations contained
in the reading.
ii.
Oral reports on individual historians selected by the students are presented
throughout the semester. The purpose of these reports is twofold: to get
students talking and asking questions and to initiate their research on their
subject. These reports last between fifteen and twenty minutes.
iii.
Intellectual biographies are written by all students, ranging from ten to fifteen
pages in length. This assignment is an extension of the in-class report. It
entails acquiring a reasonable familiarity with the major works (book length as
well as articles) of the historian chosen. The purpose of the exericse is
primarily to place the chosen historian in historiographical context while
illustrating what “type” of history he or she writes. The intellectual biography
should clearly demonstrate the student’s coming to grips with the three SLO’s
of this course, namely to: (1) identify and evaluate the principal characteristics
of different schools of historical writing of the modern age (for example,
romanticism, historicism, Marxism); (2) analyze such topics as changing
concepts of historical truth and validity, the problem of objectivity, different
sense of time, and the postmodern dilemma; and (3) recognize the effects of
gender, class, and race on historical studies. Dr. Pickering writes: “If a student
chooses Herodotus, she can investigate his concept of hubris and its
relationship to the tragedies of the Golden Age of Athens. In this way, she
learns how a historian’s approach to history is shaped by his or her own
historical context.”
iv.
The knowledge and familiarity of the students of the historians read and
discussed during the semester are tested in the mid term examination and in
the final examination. These examinations consist of identification terms and
concepts, short and long essay questions. Some sample questions from the
two professors who teach Hist. 102 include: (1) What is the purpose of
studying history? How have different historians explained their reasons for
writing about the past? Have historians’ goals changed throughout time?; (2)
Define objectivity as an ideal in writing about the past. What historians have
promoted it and how did they believe they were achieving it? What scholars
have attacked it and on what grounds?; (3) What was the most significant
historiographical essay written by an American historian and why?; (4) What is
meant by Whig historiography? What does it have in common with Marxist
historiography?; (5) Describe the basic tenets of the Annales school of French
historical writing? How do these compare with the tenets of historicism?
b. summarize the data yielded by your assessment:
The two sections of Hist. 102 contained 31 students (Pickering) and 22 (Vásquez).
Professor Pickering writes: “Using all of these written and oral methods, I was able to
gauge if students really understand the problems of historical interpretation and
school of historical thought. Out of thirty-one students in the class last semester, only
five received grades below a B-. Eight received some kind of A. Thus I conclude that
my method of teaching worked well.” The results in Dr. Vásquez’s class were
comparable in that seven students received grades below a B- and there were four A’s.
c. how data was reviewed by faculty:
As only one section of Hist. 102 is taught each semester and that by a different
professor (Pickering in the fall, and Vásquez in the spring), the instructors sit down at
the end of the academic year, together with the other two core faculty members –
Guardino and Hilde – to review how the core courses have worked during the year.
This year the instructors of Hist. 102 raised serious concerns about the failure of most
of the graduating seniors to have mastered the technical fundamentals of historical
writing, more specifically how to structure in accordance with The Chicago Manual of
Style quotations, footnotes, and bibliography. Dr. Vásquez pointed out that eighteen of
the twenty-two students enrolled in his section of Hist. 102 were unable to handle
quotations, footnotes, and/or bibliography properly. The conclusion reached by the
core faculty was that familiarity of The Chicago Manual of Style (or Turabian, in its
shortened form) must be further reinforced in Hist. 99 and 100W as well as in Hist. 102.
d. summarize your interpretation of the data:
The term papers and final examinations in both sections of Hist. 102 demonstrated that
75% or more of the students enrolled in the two sections of this course came to grips
successfully with the PLO being measured during the past academic year. What
changes needed to be made are more mechanical than anything else and therefore not
substantive.
4.
Alignment of Course and Program Learning Outcomes:
See attached matrix
5.
Recommendations for Student Learning:
Recognizing the truth that there is always room for improvement, the History Department
has revised its curriculum so that all upper division courses in the major, including the
third core course (Hist. 102, Historiography), will go from three units to four units. How will
this change affect Hist. 102? It will require students to write a longer research or term
paper – going from ten-to-fifteen pages to twenty. It will require students to submit a first
draft of their work to the instructor for his or her scrutiny and comments. It will require
students to read more extensively the works of the subject of their respective oral
presentations and “intellectual biographies” or term papers. It will also require each
student to facilitate at least one discussion of one of the weekly reading assignments in
which the student will speak about the special characteristics of the historical school of
writing represented by his or her historian. And special attention will be paid in each of the
three core history courses – Hist. 99, Hist. 100W, and Hist. 102 – to mastering the nuts and
bolts of historical writing as contained in The Chicago Manual of Style.
6.
Plans – 2013/14:
The History Department’s 5-year assessment plan calls for four PLO’s in its Bachelor of
Arts Program, five in its Master of Arts Program, and one in its MA, Concentration in
History Education.
2013-2014 represents the fifth year of our assessment plan. Consequently, we will revert to
PLO#1 (“Students analyze critically the thesis and argument/interpretation of the following
types of historical literature in western and non-western fields in pre-modern and modern
history: Narrative history, Historiography/Intellectual history, Social/Cultural history,
Political/Diplomatic history.”)
The MA in history will assess the fifth PLO or “Respect scientific and technological
developments and recognize their impact on humankind.”
Students in the MA, Concentration in History Education, will be assessed in their ability to
“participate knowledgeably in the affairs of the world around them, drawing upon
understandings shaped through reading, writing, and lectures concerning the past.”
7.
Attachment #1
Matrix: Alignment of Course and Program Learning Outcomes
Bachelors of Arts in History
Hist 99
Hist 100W
Hist 102
PLO 1
X
X
X
PLO 2
X
X
X
PLO 3
X
X
X
PLO 4
X
Masters of Arts in History
Plan B Exam
PLO 1
X
PLO 2
X
PLO 3
X
PLO 4
X
PLO 5
X
CHE*
X
CHE* Concentration in History Education