Program: Sociology (MA)
Degree: Master's
Date: Fri Oct 10, 2014 - 5:33:45 pm
1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.
As Graduate Chair since February 2014, I am proposing that we revise our SLOs. I will have the graduate studies committee discuss these proposed revisions this semester and then have the faculty approve the changes at a faculty meeting.
Revised SLOs October 2014
1. Demonstrate understanding of a broad range of sociological theories and research methods.
2. Demonstrate ability to design a feasible research project to address a sociological problem or
issue of theoretical interest.
3. Apply principles to protect human subjects in the design of sociological research.
4. Demonstrate ability to carry out an independent research project to collect and analyze
research data.
5. Demonstrate ability to interpret research results in relation to sociological theory.
6. Demonstrate clear and effective verbal and written communication skills.
Old SLOs from 2012 report
2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.
Department Website URL: Student Handbook. URL, if available online: Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online: UHM Catalog. Page Number: 
Course Syllabi. URL, if available online: e-syllabi college of social sciences website Other: Other: 3) Select one option:
- File (03/16/2020)
4) For your program, the percentage of courses that have course SLOs explicitly stated on the syllabus, a website, or other publicly available document is as follows. Please update as needed.
0%
1-50% 51-80% 81-99% 100%5) Did your program engage in any program assessment activities between June 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014? (e.g., establishing/revising outcomes, aligning the curriculum to outcomes, collecting evidence, interpreting evidence, using results, revising the assessment plan, creating surveys or tests, etc.)
Yes No (skip to question 14)6) For the period between June 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014: State the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goals. Include the SLOs that were targeted, if applicable.
I became Chair of the Graduate Program in February 2014. The previous Graduate Chair, Dr. Bill Wood, did not submit an assessment report to your office for 2013. I'm sorry for that omission. Thus, we did not have assessment goals.
This 2014 assessment report has made me realize that we need to revise our SLOs as noted in the first question of this survey. Once the SLOs are approved they need to be posted on our new website and I need to encourage more faculty to include SLOs in their graduate course syllabi.
7) State the type(s) of evidence gathered to answer the assessment question and/or meet the assessment goals that were given in Question #6.
As I stated before, we did not submit an assessment report in 2013.
The graduate students conducted an online survey to assess how the students felt about our graduate program and areas that needed improvement. The graduate studies committee supported the survey and we plan to continue it next year for assessment purposes.
We also had our usual annual review of graduate students. All the faculty had a meeting in February 2014 to evaluate each MA student in our program to ensure that our students are making satisfactory progress. We have a rubric that we use to assess the progress of each student. Each student's advisor or Chair of his/her thesis committee provides the assessment of that student's progress. Then, other relevant faculty members provide their assessments. Finally, the Graduate Chair sends each student a letter updating them about their annual review by the faculty and the assessment of their progress in our MA program. As the students progress through our MA program they achieve each of the SLOs.
8) State how many persons submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.
Not applicable because we did not have assessment goals in 2013.
9) Who interpreted or analyzed the evidence that was collected? (Check all that apply.)
Course instructor(s) Faculty committee Ad hoc faculty group Department chairperson Persons or organization outside the university Faculty advisor Advisors (in student support services) Students (graduate or undergraduate) Dean/Director Other: Chair of the Graduate Program will evaluate the results of the online graduate student survey10) How did they evaluate, analyze, or interpret the evidence? (Check all that apply.)
Used a rubric or scoring guide Scored exams/tests/quizzes Used professional judgment (no rubric or scoring guide used) Compiled survey results Used qualitative methods on interview, focus group, open-ended response data External organization/person analyzed data (e.g., external organization administered and scored the nursing licensing exam) Other: 11) For the assessment question(s) and/or assessment goal(s) stated in Question #6:
Summarize the actual results.
We did not have assessment goals because a report was not submitted in 2013. The results of our online graduate student survey are available on request.
12) State how the program used the results or plans to use the results. Please be specific.
We plan to use the resuts from the online graduate student survey to improve the morale of the graduate student, expand some of our research specializations, and to hire new faculty. We only have 10.5 faculty when we should have 16.
13) Beyond the results, were there additional conclusions or discoveries?
This can include insights about assessment procedures, teaching and learning, program aspects and so on.
This assessment process made me realize that we need to revise our SLOs and encourage more faculty to include SLOs in their syllabi. We plan to continue to do graduate student surveys to get their valuable feedback about our graduate program.
14) If the program did not engage in assessment activities, please explain.
Or, if the program did engage in assessment activities, please add any other important information here.
Other than the online graduate student survey and our usual annual review of graduate student progress, we did not engage in assessment activities because an assessment report was not submitted in 2013.