• Approved -- minutes from meeting on March 25, 1999

• The Provost's Office will be depending on the committee a lot in the next year
• The committee will help them stay on target

For each of the approximately 400 "must" statements, there will be a respondent who is closely involved in that area and a reviewer. The document then goes to the appropriate faculty committee, then a steering committee, and on to SACS.
We must:

1. formulate educational goals that are consistent with the University's purpose
2. develop and implement procedures to evaluate our achievement of those goals
3. do something about the results

Writing Assessment (Phil Moore)

• We have approximately 4000 writing samples (pre-ENGL101 and post-ENGL102).
• We are hoping to find more students and get writing assignments-- it would be helpful to have 2 copies of each, one for instructor, one for IPA.
• The writing prompts were less than desirable and inter-rater reliability was very poor (not enough variation between new and veteran students). What do we do with the results?
• Starting next fall, we could collect the first graded assignment for ENGL101 and 102.
• In the past, we've trained and paid English graduate assistants to score the writing samples.
• The writing assessment subcommittee needs to review the scoring rubric.
• Robert Cuttino added that electronic submission of writing samples was discussed at the AIR conference.
• Approved-- keep the 2 writing samples, add a third and do better on the first sample.

• Allows searches by keyword, general education goal, survey and pertinent university committee.
• Has views of each of the 11 educational goals, along with results and national norms.
• Draws data from the CIRP, CSEQ, Senior Survey and Alumni Survey.
• Trend data can be performed on questions that are available for multiple years.
• The warehouse can help us figure out what we're already measuring-- rather than employing an instrument that collects data that we already have.
• In the future, the warehouse will report statistically significant relationships and national norms.

1. biased against non-US natives
2. was more a test of general intelligence, not educational effectiveness

• Approved-- the COMP will, at least partially, be replaced by data that are already collected on campus.
• There are problems with applying social science methods to self-selected groups.
• How much better off are students for coming here?
• The committee did a good job coming up with criteria for assessment, but there will never be an instrument to cover it all.
• We may have to resort to developing a local instrument to meet our very specific criteria.
• Don Stowe will recruit members for a subcommittee to investigate alternatives to the COMP such as: College Base, ETS, and Regents College.
• UNIV401 will give us 3 hours each semester to do assessment.
• Approved-- a pilot test for mathematical skills will be developed by an interdisciplinary sub-committee, headed by Mary Ellen O'Leary.
• If we could show that all students are required to take math classes and they must pass them to graduate, that would be acceptable.
• A modified Angoff Procedure could be used for determining cutoff scores.

• If we can demonstrate that all students are exposed to the same general education goals, then SACS will accept sampling.
• Don Stowe expressed some concern about balancing the demands of SACS and the CHE with using results to improve general education.

• Don Stowe volunteered to head a qualitative subcommittee that will look at UNIV401 presentations, which are appropriate for oral and written communication and computer skills such as PowerPoint.
• The committee will also look at criteria for synthesizing information.

• Don Stowe reiterated that assessment should be considered at the college and departmental level.
• Marcia Welsh proposed that an article about the importance of assessment and the SACS review be published in the USC Times.
• Henry Price asked whether our definition of general education goals meet SACS approval. According to Marcia Welsh, USC defines the goals and USC evaluates the goals through activities like Program Review. That allows more control at the college curriculum level.

The Assessment Advisory Committee, in cooperation with the aculty Committee on Instructional Development, will offer an assessment workshop on November 16, 1999, from 2:30-4:00pm in room 409 College of Nursing.

The next meeting of the Assessment Advisory Committee will be held on November 18, 1999, from 3:00-4:30pm in room 107-C Osborne.

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This page updated 8 October 1999 by ipa@sc.edu.
This page copyright © 1999, The Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina.
URL http://kudzu.ipr.sc.edu/assessment/min0999.htm