Pilot Test of an Assessment Method

Poster Exhibit
Anthropology is a four-field discipline that encompasses historical, humanistic, biological, linguistic, and psychological approaches to a holistic study of humankind. This disciplinary diversity poses problems for assessment. Quite distinct methods are used in each subfield, and assessment must be targeted to the specific courses in which particular methods are emphasized and mastered. During this review period a pilot assessment activity focused on one of the most important methodological approaches in cultural anthropology (one of the four fields) to help determine effective techniques that might apply to assessments of the other major methods categories. The goal of the activity was to transcend course specific and instructor specific evaluation (as provided already by exams and papers) and allow faculty specialists in each subfield to participate in the focused assessments. In this case members of the “cultural caucus” (one of the three faculty subgroups in the department) focused on linguistic anthropology methodology.

Anthropology is a four-field discipline that encompasses historical, humanistic, biological, linguistic, and psychological approaches to a holistic study of humankind. This disciplinary diversity poses problems for assessment. Quite distinct methods are used in each subfield, and assessment must be targeted to the specific courses in which particular methods are emphasized and mastered. During this review period a pilot assessment activity focused on one of the most important methodological approaches in cultural anthropology (one of the four fields) to help determine effective techniques that might apply to assessments of the other major methods categories. The goal of the activity was to transcend course specific and instructor specific evaluation (as provided already by exams and papers) and allow faculty specialists in each subfield to participate in the focused assessments. In this case members of the “cultural caucus” (one of the three faculty subgroups in the department) focused on linguistic anthropology methodology. By Andrew Arno

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Recommended Citation:
Arno, A. (2009, December). Pilot Test of an Assessment Method. Poster session presented at the Assessment for Curricular Improvement Poster Exhibit at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI.