Other Assessment Findings

In addition to the formative surveys discussed above, the following additional assessments were used during the course of the grant in AC 15 and AC 16:

  • Attitudes - Attitudes surveys were conducted at the beginning and end of each of the six semesters of the grant. Tables A.1 through A.4 in the Appendix provide listings of the variables used in these surveys, together with semester-by-semester mean scores and selected comparison tests.
  • Knowledge - At the end of each of the first three semesters of the grant, multiple choice exams were used to collect data on knowledge acquisition. These multiple choice exams were found to be ineffective (see comments in Section III, above - Problem #6), and, accordingly, were discontinued in the Spring, 1994.
  • Common final exams - As indicated in Section III, in the Fall, 1993, the project team began to control carefully the semester-by-semester changes in the final exam for each course so that a fixed number of questions addressed the same issues at essentially the same level of difficulty. Tables A.5 and A.6 in the Appendix show semester-by-semester mean scores and standard deviations (question-by-question and in total).

Brief comments on the attitudes survey and common final assessment results are provided in the paragraphs that follow.

Attitudes Survey Findings

Based on an inspection of the results reported in Tables A.1 through A.4 the following findings are of particular interest:

AC 15:

  • Pretest scores - The following shifts in pretest scores over the period of the grant (Table A.1) are noteworthy:
    • Student attitudes towards the effectiveness of group work appear to becoming increasingly positive
    • Students report that they are increasingly proficient as writers and computer users
  • Posttest scores - The following shifts in posttest scores (Table A.2) are of interest:
    • Students find the new curriculum to be challenging and interesting, yet very time consuming
    • Composite measures regarding group, writing, and computer activities are all moving in the desired direction and have changed significantly over time.

AC 16:

  • Pretest scores - The following shifts in pretest scores (Table A.3) are noteworthy:
    • Students report that they are increasingly proficient as computer users
  • Posttest scores - The following shifts in posttest scores (Table A.4) are of interest:
    • Students find the new curriculum to be challenging and interesting, yet very time consuming and difficult
    • Composite measures regarding group and computer activities are both moving in the desired direction and have changed significantly over time.

The above described shifts in pretest scores may reflect impacts of gradual changes in curricula throughout the university (e.g., increased emphasis on writing skills, collaborative learning, and computer skills) as well as "grapevine" effects of students passing on their experience with the new curriculum to other students. In contrast, the shifts in posttest scores appear to be more directly attributable to impacts of the new curriculum.

Common Final Exam Findings

Examples of common final exams for AC 15 and AC 16 for the Spring Semester, 1995 are included in the Appendix. These exams were developed by the project team (working together in weekly meetings) and were designed to be responsive to the overall objectives and subobjectives that have been articulated for each course. The semester-by-semester results reported in Tables A.5 and A.6 show consistency over time, except for the following: i) AC 15 - Fall, 1993, question #5: this question turned out to be unexpectedly difficult; and, ii) AC 16 - Fall, 1994 and Spring, 1995, question #9: because of a change in course content, the final exam was expanded to nine questions in the Fall, 1994, which makes comparisons with earlier semesters difficult to interpret.

Retention Rates

As shown in Table VI.6, retention rates before and after introduction of the reengineered curriculum remained relatively constant. This result has been encouraging because students have also reported that they have found the new curriculum to be significantly more time consuming (see item # 6 in Tables A.2 and A.4).

    Table VI.6

Note: the table is stored as Microsoft Word documents.

Home | Overview | Introduction | Motivation for Change
Structure of the New Courses | Obstacles | Resources | Outcome Measures
Reaction of Interested Parties | Recommendations for Interested Parties | Links | Index