Assessment Data from the First Year of…

J. Corey Butler, Co-Chair of the LEC SMSU Professional Development DayAugust 17th, 2011

Small, discussion-oriented course Taught by faculty across the university IDST, but housed within the Liberal

Education Committee (formerly LACOB) Themes of interest to both faculty and

students Explicit library skills component Common text: Weston, 4th Ed.

World War I Good King, Bad King Issues in Law, Politics and Business Blues and Jazz Meaning of Life So You Want to Help People Freedom Fries

Development of critical thinking skills An introduction to the community of

Southwest Minnesota State University Progress in written and oral

communication skills

Common Course Evaluations Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) Institutional Retention Data Faculty Involvement Statistics

16-item Scantron survey Questions focused on the course, not

the instructor 16 of 26 FYS sections participated in

the evaluation process Total sample of 351 students (59% of

students taking FYS)

Over 2/3 of the students had favorable impressions about…Improvement in critical thinkingUnderstanding of academic honestyInterest in their section’s themeActive learning in classPositive contribution to their education

Students had less favorable impressions on some of the items…Library usageImprovement in writing skillsUnderstanding of the Liberal Education Program

Not all sections participated Self-report data Limited response range on the

Scantron

Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) Standardized test from Tennessee Tech 15 “essay” questions Measures 12 critical thinking skills

chosen to reflect a consensus among faculty

Scored by our faculty

Administered in 4 of 12 sections in Spring, 2011

Administered during regular class hours Pretest during the first week of class Posttest during the final week of class One of the 4 sections omitted from

analysis due to high dropout

Pretest/posttest design No control group Previous research shows minimal

practice effects

50 students took both tests 36 students (pairs of tests) randomly

selected for scoring One student omitted due to incomplete

test Blind scoring

A perfect score is 38 Pretest average = 15.42 (SD = 4.85) Posttest average = 16.24 (SD = 5.35) t(34) = 1.03, p = .313 NOT statistically significant

One of the three sections tested did show a significant improvement

13.88 (SD = 5.04) vs. 17.09 (SD = 4.74), t(10) = 2.37, p = .039

Our students outperformed the Tenn Tech norm of 13.66 for comparable schools, p < .01

Small sample Inexperienced scorers Low student motivation Wrong kind of critical thinking?

Part of Goal 2, integration into the SMSU community

Also a focus of the Retention Planning Team

Doug Sweetland’s objective of 80%

68.0% of 2009 Freshman returned in 2010 69.9% of 2010 Freshmen returned in 2011 73.4% of 2010 Freshmen that enrolled in

FYS returned in 2011 46.2% of 2010 Freshmen that did NOT

take FYS returned in 2011 (n = 65)

Data from August 3rd, 2011

FYS students are retained at higher levels than the 10-year average

BUT… these are correlational data Students who missed FYS may have

been less prepared for college

15% of SMSU faculty have participated in FYS

Class size should be limited to 20 Class size is often 25 to 28, after

transfer students are added

Generally positive course evaluations Little impact on critical thinking or

retention Staffing challenges Where do we go from here?