2013-2014 Annual Program Assessment Report
Please submit report to your department chair or program coordinator, the Associate Dean of your College, and to
james.solomon@csun.edu, director of assessment and program review, by Tuesday, September 30, 2014. You may submit a
separate report for each program which conducted assessment activities.
College: Humanities
Department: Linguistics/TESL
Program: BA in Linguistics
Assessment liaison: Tineke Scholten
1. Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s). Provide a brief overview of this year’s assessment plan and process.
In accordance with the 5-year plan for assessment, the Linguistics/TESL Department set out to evaluate to what extent students majoring in
Linguistics are able to “read, evaluate, and write effectively about linguistics topics.” (BA SLO 5) A plan for data collection was developed during
the first Linguistics Advisory Committee meeting in the Fall of 2013. Data were subsequently collected and evaluated from two core courses in
the undergraduate curriculum: LING 300 (Approaches to Linguistic Analysis) in Fall 2013 and LING 404 (Syntax) in Spring 2014.
2. Assessment Buy-In. Describe how your chair and faculty were involved in assessment related activities. Did department
meetings include discussion of student learning assessment in a manner that included the department faculty as a whole?
Assessment is a regular item on the agenda of the Linguistics Advisory Committee. The Assessment Liaison generally initiates the discussion
related to that part of assessment that involves the annual data collection and evaluation and all members of the committee weigh in on how to
execute the data collection and analysis for any given year. All faculty, including the Chair and part time faculty, participate willingly in the
execution of the annual assessment process. Assessment (whether driven by the annual data collection or based on anecdotal data from the
teaching experiences of faculty) is a vital part of almost every Linguistics Advisory Committee meeting and has prompted numerous curricular
and other changes over the past years. Assessment has taken a particularly prominent role during this academic year as faculty actively
participated in the Self Study process for the Department’s Program Review.
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
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3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
As mentioned above, the Department measured BA SLO5. Students will be able to “read, evaluate, and write effectively about linguistics topics.”
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)
Reaching this SLO requires the student to have competencies in the following areas:
 Critical Thinking
 Written Communication
 Information Literacy
3c. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
A graded homework assignment was used for data collection in LING 300 and a term paper for LING 404. The LING 300 assignment took the form
of a brief paper in which students compared and contrasted word order and case marking in English and Latin. For the term paper in LING 404,
students were required to either submit a literature review or an analysis of a set of syntactic data. The same rubric was used to quantify the
responses in both classes.
3d. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at different
points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment points used.
All undergraduate linguistics majors in LING 300 and one section of LING 404 were part of the study. LING 300 is intended to serve as a
comprehensive, upper division introduction to Linguistics, while LING 404 completes the undergraduate students’ curriculum in one area of
linguistics: syntax. Due to size and lack of cohorts, a quantitative, longitudinal or cross sectional comparison is not likely to be reliable and it
would not be accurate to frame this data collection and analysis in terms of a gateway/capstone comparison. However, by replicating this study
in future years, we might be able to assess whether the recent addition of a dedicated introduction to linguistics for linguistics majors, which was
first offered in Fall of 2012, will result in stronger performance in the 400 level classes in upcoming years.
3e. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from the
collected evidence.
The data were rated according to a rubric specifying the skills expressed in SLO5. The results were as follows:
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LING 300 (n = 20)
Introducing main ideas: The student clearly conveys a central claim/central question or idea.
Average (4 point
scale)
3.16
Average
(%)
78.95
Development of ideas/argument: The student’s discussion/analysis is cohesive, demonstrating solid linguistic reasoning.
2.58
64.47
Effective use of supporting data: The student supports his/her claims by introducing relevant language data where needed.
2.89
72.22
Formatting of language data: The student’s presentation of data in the text largely follows APA/LSA style requirements
(use of glosses, layout, quotation marks around citation forms, etc.)
2.53
63.16
Writing Mechanics: The student’s writing meets college level requirements in terms of overall mechanics: spelling,
punctuation, paragraph structure, etc.
3.10
77.50
Average of all responses:
2.85
71.26
LING 404(n = 16)
Introducing main ideas: The student clearly conveys a central claim/central question or idea.
Average (4 point
scale)
3.00
Average
(%)
75.00
Development of ideas/argument: The student’s discussion/analysis is cohesive, demonstrating solid linguistic reasoning.
2.63
65.63
Effective use of supporting data: The student supports his/her claims by introducing relevant language data where needed.
2.53
63.33
Formatting of language data: The student’s presentation of data in the text largely follows APA/LSA style requirements
(use of glosses, layout, quotation marks around citation forms, etc.)
3.08
77.08
Writing Mechanics: The student’s writing meets college level requirements in terms of overall mechanics: spelling,
punctuation, paragraph structure, etc.
2.88
71.88
Average of all responses:
2.82
70.58
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Students in LING 300 demonstrated overall an introductory understanding of how to present a linguistic argument. It was noted that some
students did not transfer what they had learned about how to present language data to a task that involved using these language data as part of
a linguistic analysis. Students in LING 404 demonstrated a comparable skills level. In both classes, weaknesses were observed in how and when
to use data to support a particular claim.
3f. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible changes
include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in program, changes
in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs, new or revised
assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
The Department has made considerable changes in the curriculum of the BA over the past years of which the effects will not be immediately
apparent, as many students are still part of the ‘old’ curriculum. A stronger emphasis on linguistics classes in the new curriculum should
reinforce the skills required to meet this SLO. The Department does not find these results to warrant any programmatic changes, but does
intend to emphasize making the form that a linguistic argument takes in all its core linguistic classes more explicit. For LING 300, it was
suggested that students are to review a model of a brief linguistic argument and analyze its characteristics in class before tackling this
assignment on their own. Moreover, a continued informal effort to coordinate course content was recommended.
4. Assessment of Previous Changes: Present documentation that demonstrates how the previous changes in the program resulted in
improved student learning.
As mentioned, it is still too early to evaluate in what ways the curriculum modification for the BA that took effect in the Fall of 2013 will affect
students’ performance relative to the BA SLOs. The Department expects that skills introduced in LING 300 will be reinforced in the other upper
division classes that are now part of the curriculum. The previous year’s annual assessment report also emphasized the need to control class
size. With a growing undergraduate student body and a limited budget, that has been an ongoing concern. Finally, the assessment discussion –
as it did last year – highlighted the need to have students take their classes in a preferred order with LING 300 preceding or at least taken
concurrently with some 400 level classes. The close collaboration with the undergraduate advisor has been extremely helpful in this respect,
although limitations on course offerings (most core classes can only be offered once a year), still make this difficult to achieve across the board.
5. Changes to SLOs? Please attach an updated course alignment matrix if any changes were made. (Refer to the Curriculum Alignment Matrix
Template, http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
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No changes took place over the past academic year.
6. Assessment Plan: Evaluate the effectiveness of your 5 year assessment plan. How well did it inform and guide your assessment
work this academic year? What process is used to develop/update the 5 year assessment plan? Please attach an updated 5 year
assessment plan for 2013-2018. (Refer to Five Year Planning Template, plan B or C,
http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
The 5-year assessment plan has provided a useful template to ensure that the department assesses all its SLOs within a 5 year period. However,
ad hoc changes in the plan should be expected and are not necessarily a negative. Each SLO encompasses a number of sub skills and the
Department may find it relevant to change the order of SLO assessment or assess a particular aspect of an SLO when warranted. This year’s
assessment followed the assessment plan and there was no need to update the plan itself.
7. Has someone in your program completed, submitted or published a manuscript which uses or describes assessment activities in your
program? Please provide citation or discuss.
No.
8. Other information, assessment or reflective activities or processes not captured above.
Over the past years, the Linguistics Department had also modified its MA, now offering two MAs: an MA-TESL and an MA in Linguistics. A 5-year
assessment plan for the MA-TESL and MA in Linguistics was developed in 2012-13 and annual data collection and evaluation was initiated in the
2013-14 academic year. Separate reports for assessment of these programs are being submitted.
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