Tag Archives: assessment

Determining “essential concepts” and “essential competencies” for sociology

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A new book suggests academic disciplines – like sociology – would benefit from defining “essential concepts” and “essential competencies.” Here are some of the outcomes for sociology:

To come up with learning outcomes in the selected six disciplines, which collectively account for more than 35 percent of undergraduate student majors in the U.S., the Measuring College Learning project began by contacting disciplinary ssociations in each field. Those groups helped select 10 to 15 faculty members to lead the work — a total of 70 professors participated…

In sociology, for example, one of the five essential concepts is the “sociological eye,” which means students “will recognize key theoretical frameworks and assumptions upon which the discipline is founded and differentiated from other social sciences.” That underpinning, the book said, includes founding theoretical traditions (Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Mead), a critique of rationality to explain human behavior and how social forces affect individuals.

Socialization is another essential concept, which is defined as students understanding the relationship between self and society, and how the self is socially constructed and maintained at multiple levels.

On the competency side, the panel said undergraduates in sociology should be able to apply scientific principles to understand the social world, evaluate the quality of social scientific data and use sociological knowledge to inform policy debates and promote understanding, among other essential competencies (there are six total).

I imagine this would generate a lot of discussion among sociologists about the merits of these kinds of outcomes, what is essential to the discipline (particularly at the undergraduate level), and how these might be accurately assessed.

On this general topic, is sociology uniquely positioned because of its emphases and skills (ability to see the big picture, focus on social structures, variety of methods, etc.) to contribute to assessment conversations?

The Common Core and college instruction

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Here is a nice overview of how the new national Common Core standards for K-12 might intersect with college instruction and learning. Here are a brief overview:

Those adjustments, if the Common Core vision is realized, could transform dual enrollment programs, placement tests, and remediation. They could force colleges within state systems, and even across states, to agree on what it means to be “college ready,” and to work alongside K-12 to help students who are unprepared for college before they graduate from high school. In the long run, it could force changes in credit-bearing courses too, to better align with what students are supposed to have mastered by high school graduation. While the effects will be most obvious at public institutions of higher education, private colleges, particularly those with broad access missions, will feel the effects as well.

Still, although a few states have seized the standards to develop “P-20” systems — stretching from pre-kindergarten through graduate school — progress has been slow in many others. In 2010, as the standards were being developed, policy makers touted the effect they could have in bringing together K-12 and higher education. And they pointed out that the ultimate success of the standards, particularly beyond K-12, will depend on whether colleges are willing to change placement and remediation criteria and work together to determine what “readiness” really means.

In some cases, that’s coming to pass. Three years later, proponents for the standards are arguing that they have already changed the way K-12 and postsecondary education interact — at least by putting the leaders of each system in the same room together and forcing states to collaborate.

And there is a little bit of a disconnect between what high school teachers say they are doing and what college educators perceive:

ACT’s most recent survey, released last week, looked at the gap between high school and college expectations for students. It found that only 26 percent of college faculty thought that students entered their classrooms prepared for college-level work. High school teachers gave themselves much higher marks. Nearly all — 89 percent — said they had prepared their students well for college.

There is going to be a lot more discussion about this in the years ahead.

Award-winning sociological rapping about Marxism and feminism

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Teachers are often looking for new ways to present material so that students will learn the material better. How about this technique: sociology teachers rapping about Marxism and feminism:

TWO teachers have won £60,000 for inventing rhymes to help pupils learn about weighty issues such as Marxism and feminism.

Claire Corrigan and Salim Rahman got students at Oldham Sixth Form College to rap alternative words to songs by stars including Dolly Parton and Shania Twain.

The sociology teachers landed the windfall in a national contest after producing an eight-minute video featuring their tunes…

One song explains Marx’s thoughts with the lines: “Capitalism is a system that keeps you subdued/ Using education as a tool that keeps you fooled/ Making you docile is the ultimate aim/Keeping you obedient for the employment game.”…

Claire added: “We used rap to talk about Marxism because it was associated with working class and the struggle against authority. For another idea, like functionalism, which is quite conservative and middle-class, we set it to the tune of The Snowman, which is quite formal.”

Does this make Marxism sound cooler than functionalism? It sounds like it was set up that way…

I would be interested to see if there was any formal assessment in these classes that showed that these raps improved student performance. When it came down to tests or projects, were these songs helpful for students?

This is a news story that simply requires a link to the original video.

Forbes’ college rankings signals possible trend of looking at alumni earnings and status

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The college rankings business is a lucrative one and there are a number of different players with a number of different measures. Forbes recently released its 2011 rankings and they have a particular angle that seems aimed at unseating the rankings of US News & World Report:

Our annual ranking of the 650 best undergraduate institutions focuses on the things that matter the most to students: quality of teaching, great career prospects, graduation rates and low levels of debt. Unlike other lists, we pointedly ignore ephemeral measures such as school “reputation” and ill-conceived metrics that reward wasteful spending. We try and evaluate the college purchase as a consumer would: Is it worth spending as much as a quarter of a million dollars for this degree? The rankings are prepared exclusively for Forbes by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington, D.C. think tank founded by Ohio University economist Richard Vedder.

With phrases like “ephemeral measures” and “ill-conceived metrics,” Forbes claims to have a better methodology. This new approach helps fill a particular niche in the college rankings market: those looking for the “biggest bang for your educational buck.”

In their rankings, 30% of the final score is based on “Post-Graduate Success.” This is comprised of three values: “Listings of Alumni in Who’s Who in America” (10%), “Salary of Alumni from payscale.com” (15%), and “Alumni in Forbes/CCAP Corporate Officers List” (5%). These may be good measures (Forbes goes to some effort to defend them) but I think there is a larger issue at play here: are these good measures by which to evaluate a college degree and experience? Is a college degree simply about obtaining a certain income and status?

At this point, many rankings and assessment tools rely on the experiences of students while they are in school. But, with an increasing price for a college degree and a growing interest in showing that college students do learn important skills and content in college, I think we’ll see more measures of and a greater emphasis placed on post-graduation information. This push will probably come from both outsiders, Forbes, parents and students, the government, etc., and college insiders. This could be good and bad. On the good side, it could help schools tailor their offerings and training to what students need to succeed in the adult world. On the bad side, if value or bang-for-your-buck becomes the overriding concern, college and particular degrees simply become paths to higher or lower-income outcomes. This could particularly harm liberal arts schools or non-professional majors.

In the coming years, perhaps Forbes will steal some of the market away from US News with the financial angle. But this push is not without consequences for everyone involved.

(Here is another methodological concern: 17.5% of a school’s total score is based on ratings from RateMyProfessors.com. Forbes suggests it cannot be manipulated by schools and is uniform across schools but this is a pretty high percentage.)

(Related: a new report rates colleges by debt per degree. A quick explanation:

Its authors say they aim to give a more complete picture of higher education — rather than judging by graduation rates alone or by default rates alone — by dividing the total amount of money undergraduates borrow at a college by the number of degrees it awards.

We’ll see if this catches on.)

22 possible ways of assessing a course

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Assessment is an important issue in schools of all levels today. On the college level, there is a growing emphasis on collecting data about particular courses and programs and then assessing whether these courses and programs met critical goals and then using that data to improve what is being offered.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has put together 22 different assessment measurements for a hypothetical college course. Broken into three categories, the instructor, during the course, and after the course, this table quickly suggests how easy or difficult it is to collect the data and then the limitations of each measure.

Just looking at this chart, here is what one could take away from it:

1. It is relatively easy to assess the qualifications of the instructor.

2. Measurement during the course appears easier than after the course.

3. A key issue with the after the course data is that it is difficult to determine exactly what impact one particular course had when students take other courses as well and get educational input outside of courses.

4. It appears that a variety of data would be useful to help avoid the limitations of individual measures.

5. Assessment can be a time-consuming and complex task.

Discussions about student-learning outcomes among college boards

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As discussions about assessment and student-learning outcomes build on college campuses, a new report looks at what governing boards think about their discussions of student-learning outcomes:

While oversight of educational quality is a critical responsibility of college boards of trustees, a majority of trustees and chief academic officers say boards do not spend enough time discussing student-learning outcomes, and more than a third say boards do not understand how student learning is assessed, says a report issued on Thursday by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

According to members, boards tend to focus on business matters. But this issue of assessment and student-learning outcomes is one that is likely to affect all levels of colleges and universities.

(A note about how the results were obtained: the survey was sent to “1,300 chief academic officers and chairs of board committees on academic affairs how boards oversee academic quality.” The response rate was only 38%.)