SJSU Annual Program Assessment Form
Academic Year 2013-2014
Department: History
Program: BA
College: Social Sciences
Website: www.sjsu.edu/history
Contact Person and Email: Patricia Evridge Hill, Patricia.Hill@sjsu.edu
Date of Report: June 1, 2014
Part A
1. List of Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Undergraduate Program Learning Outcomes (BA)
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.
2.
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 pre-modern and modern history:
Government documents, Histories/Historical Accounts, Literature and Poetry, Images, Autobiographies,
Diaries, Letters, Newspapers, Maps, Quantitative Data, Oral Interviews.
3.
Using historical literature and primary sources of the types listed above, students write history
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.
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.
2. Map of PLOs to University Learning Goals (ULGs)
ULG
Specialized Knowledge
Broad Integrative Knowledge
Intellectual Skills
Applied Knowledge
Social and Global Responsibilities
PLO (above)
1
2
3
3
4
This mapping was completed by the current department Assessment Committee representative and last
year’s department Assessment Committee representative in consultation with members of the College
of Social Science’s Assessment Committee.
3. Alignment – Matrix of PLOs to Courses
Course
Hist 99—History Fundamentals
Hist 100W—History Writers’ Workshop
Hist 102—Historiography
PLOs Assessed
1-4
1-4
1-4
Hist 99 is a 3-unit lower-division course that history majors must pass before enrolling in Hist 100W.
Students must complete 100W with a C or better before enrolling in Hist 102, a 4-unit course that is the
traditional capstone for history majors. This sequence of courses is required of all majors so is used to
assess our program. History majors choose from a variety of courses in multiple fields and time periods
to complete the rest of their upper-division units.
4. Planning – Assessment Schedule
Since the S10 Annual Assessment Report (based on data gathered during F09), we have assessed one of
the four PLOs listed above each academic year. Faculty colleagues who teach the three core courses
used to assess our program discuss the results of each year’s findings and recommend changes at a
department meeting. Those recommendations are discussed by the faculty as a whole and forwarded to
the curriculum committee if appropriate.
5. Student Experience
Student feedback was solicited via exit interviews with program graduates in AY 2005-2006 before the
PLOs were developed. Currently, some faculty members discuss PLOs with their classes as part of an
explanation of course learning objectives, which appear on each syllabus.
Part B
6. Graduation Rates for Total, Non URM and URM Students by Program
Note: URM = African-American, Hispanic, and Americam-Indians; Non-URM = White and Asian/Pacific Islander; Other = Other and Foreign
Academic Programs
History Total
URM
Non-URM
Other
First-time Freshmen:
6 Year Graduation
Rates
Fall 2007 Cohort
Entering
% Grad
25
44.0%
5
20.0%
15
46.7%
5
60.0%
New UG Transfers: 3
Year Graduation Rates
Fall 2010 Cohort
Entering
% Grad
40
45.0%
10
50.0%
20
50.0%
10
30.0%
Grads : 3 Year
Graduation Rates
Fall 2010
Entering
16
3
12
1
Cohort
% Grad
75.0%
33.3%
83.3%
100.0%
7. Headcount of Program Majors and New Students by Programs and Degree
Note: 1st Fr. = First-time Freshmen; Transf = Transfer Students; UGs = Undergraduate Students; Creds = Credential
Students; Grads = Graduate Students
Fall 2013
New Students
History
Degree
1st Fr.
UG Transf
Total
24
BA
24
MA
0
Cont. Students
Total
1st
Grads
18
UGs
Creds
Grads
UGs
Creds
Grads
33
New
Creds
0
146
0
25
203
0
43
33
0
0
146
0
0
203
0
0
0
0
18
0
0
25
0
0
43
8. SFR (Exhibit 3) and Average Headcount per Section (Exhibit 2) by Course Prefix
Course
Prefix
Course Level
HIST History
Total
Lower Division
Upper Division
Graduate Division
Fall 2013
Student to
Average
Faculty
Headcount per
Ratio (SFR)
Section
16.9
33.7
14.5
49.2
26.7
30.6
10.2
8.2
9. Percentage of Full-time Equivalent Faculty (FTEF) for tenured/tenure-track instructional faculty by
Department
% Tenured/Prob
History
39.7%
Fall 2013
Tenured
Temp
Lecturer
7.566
11.5
Probationary
0
Part C
10. Closing the Loop/Recommended Actions
1. We need to include both University Learning Goals and PLOs on the department’s web site with an
explanation of how the activities described in the PLOs demonstrate particular ways that successful
history majors achieve ULGs.
2. We should continue the practice of core course faculty presenting assessment results to colleagues at
a faculty meeting followed by a discussion of best practices. If appropriate, core course faculty should
make recommendations for changes in the curriculum to the department’s curriculum committee.
11. Assessment Data and
12. Analysis
As has been the department’s practice, due in large part to workload considerations in a reading and
writing intensive discipline, we assessed student learning in each of three sequential core courses (Hist
99, 100W, and 102) separately. As a result, each instructor’s data and analysis is presented sequentially
and separately below. This year, we assessed 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.
Hist 99—History Fundamentals (3 units)
History 99 is designed to help students deal with problems of historical interpretation in the writing process. In the fall
semester of 2013, students were to write three papers and/or outlines responding to historical questions based primary
and secondary sources in American history. Each assignment was more challenging than its predecessor. At the start of
the semester students took a pre-test to determine their writing abilities. Randomly selecting three students from the
pre-test submissions, one student was able to write a clear and concise thesis to fully address the prompt and provide
an argument for the paper based on the primary sources. At the end of the semester students were given a post test on
the same prompt and all three of the students were able to successfully write a thesis statement.
Based on their performance on the three assignments—all of which required students to demonstrate mastery of PLO
1—18 of 25 students enrolled in F13 section 1 completed the course with a C or better (7 finished with a C- or below).
23 of 25 students enrolled in F13 section 2 completed the course with a C or better (2 finished with a C- or below).
With the help of in-class assignments through which students practiced identifying historians’ theses, most students
understood that they needed to respond to a prompt posed in the form of a question (Project 1) with a clear
answer/thesis that included their interpretation of the documents provided.
Assignment and Sources for Project 1: After the Federal Writers’ Project of the 1930s, which collected oral histories
from hundreds of former slaves, historians began to develop a more nuanced understanding of the lives of ante-bellum
slaves and their relations with their masters. Your job is to develop a descriptive analysis of slave life through these
sources and answer the question: How and why did slaves “put on the master” or use sly tricks during slavery? There
are four primary sources. The first three are stories told by African-Americans who had served as slaves when young
and lived to recall the stories for the Federal Writers’ Project during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The fourth story
is from Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which he recalls the strategies he used to learn how to read and write
while he was a child slave.
Project 2 was more difficult since it required students to develop their own historical question to research based on
the following information: The following primary sources present documents from the famous 1830-37 decision to
remove the Cherokees from their historic lands in Georgia and Alabama to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River
during the Andrew Jackson administration. In these documents we see two communities in dispute about the removal
policy. In the white community, we have Andrew Jackson for removal and William Penn (the pseudonym for publisher
Jeremiah Everts) and Senator Theodore Frelinghusen who opposed removal. On the Cherokee side, we have John Ross,
a Cherokee chief who staunchly opposed removal, and John Ridge, a chief who decided that orderly removal was better
than being thrown out by the white settlers.
Again, most of the students were able to complete this project successfully. But it required more guidance from the
instructor as well as peer-mentoring exercises for some students to develop an analytical thesis.
Here is the prompt for Project 3: Your third assignment for this class is a twelve-page research paper in which you
argue from primary source(s) on the class topic of rock music and youth culture in the 1950s and 60s. I will send an
email to students who are eligible to choose a different individual topic. This selection will be based on previous work
on papers and not necessarily on your cumulative grade. All topics for the research paper must use a Narrative Analysis
technique, which means that you must demonstrate change over time and the evolution of the historical phenomenon
or event. Therefore, your selection of primary sources must demonstrate your grouping of the music and lyrics into
phases that you will argue have evolved as the youth culture and its concerns, values, thoughts and perceptions
changed.
Obviously, this was the most challenging assignment because students were required to locate primary sources
themselves and use them to demonstrate the thesis they created. Still, most were able to generate appropriate theses
by this point in the semester. Students who had trouble with this assignment more typically did not allow themselves
enough time to locate sufficient sources and write a polished essay.
Hist 100W—History Writers’ Workshop (3 units)
In 100W for Fall 2013, each student wrote ten-page essays based on The Campaigns of Alexander (also known
as Anabasis Alexandrou) by Lucius Flavius Arrianus and The Secret History of the Mongols: The Origin of Chingis
Khan (also known as Yuan Ch'ao Pi Shih) written by an unknown Mongol chronicler. The Campaigns of Alexander was
probably written during the reign of Hadrian (r. 117-138 C.E.) but about Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 B.C.E.). The
Secret History of the Mongols was written down in the mid-13th century C.E. and is the oldest written text in the
Mongolian language.
For both essays, all students had to write a topic/thesis one-page paper. This paper stated the thesis at the top of the
page. Then, the student needed to explain what the anticipated paper would contain. These theses were gathered by
the instructor in class and shuffled. Then, she wrote each thesis on the board without indicating who wrote it. The
whole class spent two days critiquing each student’s thesis. Each thesis was discussed and changed using a thesis
checklist. The class also attempted to improve the theses that were done well. This improvement might include
wording, organization, and focus. Students were expected to speak up and help at least three times during each class
session. The students were awarded peer review points based on their participation.
The workshop also included small group outline critiques and individual draft critiques by the students for each essay.
The outline critiques included discussion of the thesis and discussion of the argument and evidence for each paper. The
draft critiques required students to indicate the thesis for the paper and topic sentence for each paragraph. Then, the
peer reviewer needed to comment on each paragraph of the paper and indicate whether each paragraph supported its
topic sentence and the thesis. Also, each peer reviewer highlighted all paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting, so the
writer would clearly see how much analysis was actually in the paper.
Approximately 75% of the class was able to critique and improve thesis statements. About 25% was unwilling or unable
to critique and improve thesis statements.
Approximately 60% of the class was able to critique and analyze argument and interpretation. About 40% was unwilling
or unable to critique and analyze argument and interpretation.
The percentages above are based on students’ participation in analyzing the theses orally in class, working in groups in
class to improve others' outlines (mainly thesis and argument), and marking the papers individually in class for thesis
and topic sentences and supporting analysis. The instructor does not think the paper grades in this case reflected
students’ mastery of the PLO since criteria for the grades also included proficiency with and consistency of citations,
English style and syntax, formatting, organization, and use of sources.
Hist 102—Historiography (4 units)
Students in the traditional capstone course for the major were asked to write “Intellectual Biographies” in which they
provided an analysis of the work and impact of a well-known historian. The “analytical thesis” students were required to
develop had to do with the kind of history their respective historians wrote. A good example would be Thomas
Babington Macaulay, the leading nineteenth-century Whig historian. Macaulay’s view of history (you could call it his
thesis) was the peculiar development of English historiography which emphasized constitutional, parliamentary liberty
coupled with material progress. The student writing on Macaulay would examine several of his essays published in the
Edinburgh Review and would have read part, if not all, of his History of England to determine how Macaulay’s view was
sustained in his writings.
With 27 students in the F13 class, the grade distribution was as follows: ten A’s, eleven B’s and six C’s. The C’s were
distributed as follows: one 79, one 77, two 75’s and two 70’s.
As evidenced by the grades on this assignment, the results were most encouraging. The best papers were on Robert
Darnton, Niall Ferguson, Eric Foner, and Jules Michelet. These papers were not only exquisitely written but showed a
very competent mastery of the theses put forward by these four historians. The two students that the instructor
believed did not do an adequate job, indicating an inability to come to terms with their respective historians’ concept of
history, wrote coincidentally on two American historians: Vernon Parrington and George Bancroft (this is interesting
because most students think it is more difficult to analyze the approaches and impact of historians from earlier time
periods). In addition to being very poorly written, these C- papers did not meet the requirements of the assignment as
described below. This means that only 7.4% of the students in the class did not succeed in interpreting the theses put
forward by their historians!
Instructions for Writing Hist 102 Intellectual Biographies:
1.
Contents: Your term paper (about 20 pages) should be an extension of your oral presentation. In other words,
you will be digging more deeply into the historian of your choice in order to prepare an intellectual biography of your
subject. To do this, I expect that you will have read at least three major works by your historian plus several additional
journal articles and/or book chapters. The bottom line is that you will be examining the historian’s contribution to
historiography. What kind of history does he/she write? Who were the principal mentors of your historian? Does
he/she belong to any recognizable historiographical school? Has he/she established an historiographical school, or has
he/she trained any prominent historians who have written about their mentor professor? Included in your paper should
be an examination/analysis of each of the major works you have read.
2.
Mechanics: Your papers should be typed with one-inch margins on all four sides. You are to adhere to Kate
Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Eighth Edition: Chicago Style for Students
and Researchers (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) concerning all matters of style, especially dealing
with footnotes, bibliographies and the handling of longer quotations.
3.
Due Date: Your papers are due on XXX at the beginning of the class hour. If you elect to submit a first draft,
make sure you do so three weeks before the final deadline. Please make sure to proofread your work carefully. Late
papers are not accepted and will not be graded. The only exception to this rule is in case of hospitalization when
accompanied by a letter signed by the attending physician. Ignoring this policy will only result in anguish and a very low
grade in the course. The critical essay will be worth 20% of the final grade.
13. Proposed Changes and Goals
As is apparent from the data and analysis above, most history students develop the ability to analyze
critically the thesis and argument/interpretation of both primary and secondary sources well before
their final semesters in the program. An emphasis on students developing the ability to prepare thesisdriven essays supported by primary and secondary sources permeates the department, which is likely
why it was the first thing that occurred to our faculty colleagues who wrote the PLOs. It is not surprising
that, since we emphasize this skill across the curriculum, students understand its importance. We need
to continue to maintain this focus since fewer and fewer of our majors come to us highly skilled as
writers.
In AY 2014-2015, we will assess PLO 2: 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 pre-modern and
modern history: Government documents, Histories/Historical Accounts, Literature and Poetry, Images,
Autobiographies, Diaries, Letters, Newspapers, Maps, Quantitative Data, Oral Interviews. As a result,
assessment will likely be based on students’ use of sources in their major writing assignments.