Department of Psychology Undergraduate Assessment Plan

Poster Exhibit, Social Sciences
In the last 6 months, the Department of Psychology has initiated a new plan that is expected to provide useful information that will eventually assess our Psychology Undergraduate Program. This new Undergraduate Assessment Plan (UAP) emerged from training in Assessment Leadership Institute at UHM, which highlighted major principles and strategies to assess academic programs. With this training knowledge, an undergraduate curriculum map was developed with faculty input that incorporates the most recent Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) from the American Psychological Association (APA). These SLOs that graduating psychology majors should know include: psychological knowledge of key concepts; scientific inquiry and critical thinking using scientific reasoning to interpret psychological phenomenon; ethical and social responsibility in diverse settings; communication development for effective writing and oral presentation; and professional development for meaningful direction after graduation. The curriculum map is important in describing specific SLOs associated with each Psychology undergraduate course taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Effective Fall 2014, all instructors will include SLOs in their syllabus that reflects their course content. Another feature of the UAP in development is the incorporation of a rubric to assess student writing. To do so, a rubric for writing to meet the APA communication SLO was obtained from the American Association of Schools & Universities and modified to assess the writing occurring in our Psychology W courses. Pilot work is being conducted to determine the feasibility and reliability of a rubric to assess student writing in a small sample of student papers. On the basis of this study, the scoring and assessment method of papers may require modifications before presenting a working rubric to the department faculty for discussion. The UAP is to eventually require a final paper written in Psychology W courses to be assessed by the instructor using a rubric accepted by the Psychology faculty.

In the last 6 months, the Department of Psychology has initiated a new plan that is expected to provide useful information that will eventually assess our Psychology Undergraduate Program. This new Undergraduate Assessment Plan (UAP) emerged from training in Assessment Leadership Institute at UHM, which highlighted major principles and strategies to assess academic programs. With this training knowledge, an undergraduate curriculum map was developed with faculty input that incorporates the most recent Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) from the American Psychological Association (APA). These SLOs that graduating psychology majors should know include: psychological knowledge of key concepts; scientific inquiry and critical thinking using scientific reasoning to interpret psychological phenomenon; ethical and social responsibility in diverse settings; communication development for effective writing and oral presentation; and professional development for meaningful direction after graduation. The curriculum map is important in describing specific SLOs associated with each Psychology undergraduate course taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Effective Fall 2014, all instructors will include SLOs in their syllabus that reflects their course content. Another feature of the UAP in development is the incorporation of a rubric to assess student writing. To do so, a rubric for writing to meet the APA communication SLO was obtained from the American Association of Schools & Universities and modified to assess the writing occurring in our Psychology W courses. Pilot work is being conducted to determine the feasibility and reliability of a rubric to assess student writing in a small sample of student papers. On the basis of this study, the scoring and assessment method of papers may require modifications before presenting a working rubric to the department faculty for discussion. The UAP is to eventually require a final paper written in Psychology W courses to be assessed by the instructor using a rubric accepted by the Psychology faculty. By Lorey K. Takahashi

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Recommended Citation:
Takahashi, L. (2014, April). Department of Psychology Undergraduate Assessment Plan. Poster session presented at the Assessment for Curricular Improvement Poster Exhibit at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI.