Program: Hawaiian (MA)
Degree: Master's
Date: Thu Oct 09, 2014 - 1:12:56 pm
1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.
Upon completion of a M.A in Hawaiian, our students should be able to . . .
|
Reading |
Demonstrate comprehension of traditional literary texts. |
|
Listening |
Demonstrate comprehension of native speaker dialog |
|
Speaking |
Offer a quality* public presentation in Hawaiian *Quality defined as proper use of the Hawaiian language and demonstration of Hawaiian concepts (i.e., welina, hua ʻōlelo, pilina ʻōlelo, ʻōlelo noʻeau, kūkulu manaʻo, kuanaʻike) |
|
Writing |
Demonstrate competence in formal writing skills that have practical/contemporary application |
|
Culture |
Demonstrate the ability to apply cultural norms in a range of communicative events |
|
Research |
Construct a culturally sensitive research project that utilizes/analyzes relevant existing resources and contributes to the overall Hawaiian knowledge base |
2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.
Department Website URL: 
Student Handbook. URL, if available online: via Native Hawaiian Student Services website http://manoa.hawaii.edu/nhss/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014-Kawaihuelani-Grad-Student-Handbook.pdf Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online: UHM Catalog. Page Number: Course Syllabi. URL, if available online: Other: website for Native Hawaiian Student Services http://manoa.hawaii.edu/nhss/academicadvising/kawaihuelani-majors/undergraduate-program-requirements/ 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.
Our main assessment activity that we continued from last academic year was an assessment of all MA program SLOs through evaluation of final theses/Plan B papers and oral defenses of our graduate students. Our program was interested in seeing how well and to what extent our students were meeting the MA program SLOs listed below at the end of their studies.
Upon completion of a M.A. in Hawaiian, students should be able to . . .
- Demonstrate comprehension of literary texts.
- Demonstrate comprehension of native speaker dialog.
- Offer a quality public presentation in Hawaiian.
- Demonstrate competence in formal writing skills that have practical/contemporary application.
- Demonstrate the ability to apply cultural norms in a range of communicative events.
Construct a culturally sensitive research project that utilizes/analyzes relevant existing resources and contributes to the overall Hawaiian knowledge base.
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.
One of the outcomes of our assessment workshop back in September 2011 was the decision by the graduate faculty to collect and evaluate two student assignments/artifacts against MA program SLOs using a rubric designed by our professors and used by the students’ MA committees.
- For students completing a PLAN A, the final thesis and oral defense would be evaluated.
- For students completing a PLAN B, the final written paper and oral defense would be evaluated.
The primary reason for this decision was because the MA students assessed during Mūkīkī Wai were assessed against two of the five MA program SLOs (speaking and culture); therefore, Kawaihuelani needed an additional activity that targeted the other SLOs (reading, writing, listening, and research). Graduate faculty worked throughout the Spring 2012 semester developing rubrics for the thesis and Plan B final written product and the oral defense/public presentations, accompanying score sheets, and an implementation process for the collection and review of these pieces of student work.
8) State how many persons submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.
Since our last annual assessment report, we collected evidence from six MA students:
- one student whose oral defense was assessed in the 2013 Annual Assessment Report finished final revisions to her paper and graduated with a master’s degree in Hawaiian in Spring 2014;
- four students who successfully completed and defended their research, graduating with master’s degrees in Hawaiian (one in Fall 2013 and three in Spring 2014)
- one student who defended her research in Summer 2014 and is expected to finish revisions to her paper and graduate this Fall 2014 semester.
Therefore, five oral defenses and five final papers were assessed using our department’s rubric since our last annual assessment report. Faculty sitting on these students’ committees met to review and discuss both the papers and the defenses before agreeing as committees on levels of performance for each product in terms of each SLO and overall.
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: 10) 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.
Tables 1 and 2 below provide a summary of the results of our assessment of student theses/Plan B final papers and oral defenses.
Table 1: Rubric Results for Hawaiian M.A. Student Plan A Theses or Plan B Non-Thesis (How many students were rated at each level? N=5)
|
Student Learning Objectives |
Exemplary/ Distinguished |
Competent/ Proficient |
|
Writing: Formal Research Paper |
1 |
4 |
|
Culture: Worldview, Cultural Norms |
1 |
4 |
|
Research: Culturally sensitive research project |
3 |
2 |
|
Reading |
2 |
3 |
|
OVERALL |
1 |
4 |
Table 2: Rubric Results for Hawaiian M.A. Student Plan A Defense or Plan B Public Presentation (How many students were rated at each level? N=5)
|
|
Student Learning Objectives |
Exemplary/ Distinguished |
Competent/ Proficient |
|
Speaking: Public Presentation |
2 |
3 |
|
|
Listening Comprehension |
2 |
3 |
|
|
Culture: Worldview, Cultural Norms |
2 |
3 |
|
|
OVERALL |
2 |
3 |
|
All students were defined as competent or exemplary in the eyes of their committee members, spread evenly between the two levels for writing, research, speaking, listening, culture, and overall performance. As these results confirm, this group of MA graduates in Hawaiian demonstrated a high quality of research. We are encouraged that their contributions will have a positive impact on the understanding of Hawaiian and the development of the teaching and learning of Hawaiian. An area we have been watching closely over the last three years has been the level of student attainment of our cultural SLO in both their written work as well as their oral defense. In 2012, none of the students scored exemplary in this area for their written work and only 1 of the 4 performed at this high level in their oral defense. In 2013, none of the students scored exemplary in this area for their oral defense. But now in 2014, we notice that 1 of our students scored exemplary in this area for their final paper and 2 scored exemplary in this area for their oral defense. While our numbers are small, there is a noticeable increase in the quality of our students when it comes to their fulfillment of our cultural SLO. This is something to be celebrated. Also noteworthy is that 3 students also scored exemplary in the area of culturally sensitive research. This is an increase from previous years and this SLO is related to our overall cultural SLO, so again we are proud to see development of cultural sensitivity, awareness, and application on the part of our MA graduates.
12) State how the program used the results or plans to use the results. Please be specific.
As stated in answer #11 above, we noticed a slight increase in the number of students scoring at the exemplary level for culture for both their paper and oral defense. We attribute this increase in part to the offering of HAW 684 Noiʻi Mele every Fall semester since 2012, a course directly related to our cultural program SLO. This course offers intensive study focusing on original compositions of Hawaiian poetry and song. As we mentioned in our BA assessment report for this year, one of the highest forms of Hawaiian cultural expression is through mele (poetry, song) where language is expertly woven together and given voice as a way of connecting to our kūpuna (ancestors) in all their many forms as well as each other and other indigenous people. We believe the increase in student performance in the cultural SLO noticed in this cohort of graduates can in part be attributed to this new learning opportunity we are offering our students every year.
While we are proud of this pattern we also acknowledge that we could do better as a department to prepare more of our students to score higher in this area. The graduate faculty has been discussing different ways to address this. In Spring 2014, a newly developed graduate course called HAW 654 ʻŌlelo Niʻihau was offered for the first time. It offers intensive, advanced study and analysis of traditional Hawaiian Ni'ihau dialect through face-to-face conversations with Ni'ihau native speakers, listening to audio recordings and watching video recordings of Ni'ihau native speakers. Native speakers of Hawaiian are one of the main sources of cultural knowledge we have left, most of whom are born and raised on the island of Niʻihau. This course was developed and is taught by one of our professor who is also a native speaker from Niʻihau. She provides opportunities to engage with other native speakers throughout the semester in person, via skype/facetime, as well as via video and audio recording for those who have passed on. This invaluable course directly addresses our cultural program SLO at the graduate level, and we look forward to seeing the impact learning experiences like this will have on future graduates. Finally, another one of our professors is planning on developing a new graduate course that focuses on ʻōlelo noʻeau or Hawaiian poetical sayings. In this course, students will be involved in discussing, researching, and applying ʻōlelo noʻeau in written and oral activities as a way to express Hawaiian worldview through language. This will be an advanced level course that builds upon the introductory course, HAW 488, at the undergraduate level.
While we understand that reaching an exemplary level for culture in relation to language is difficult for any second language learner, especially at the master’s level, we do feel there are practical and plausible things we can do to support our students ongoing journey to understand the cultural worldview of our ancestors as expressed through language use.
Finally, since we have been using the rubric assessment process for our theses and oral defenses for about two years, it is our hope that this academic year our faculty will revisit the rubrics and score sheets and possibly make some revisions to the documents and process based on two years of data and experience.
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.
In addition to providing the graduate faculty with evidence of student achievement and challenges that will inform improvements to the program curriculum, this assessment activity benefits our students as they complete the program by giving them insight into what is expected of them and what they should strive for, thus ensuring more widespread success among our majors. These rubrics are now a part of the Kawaihuelani Graduate Student Handbook available online via the Native Hawaiian Student Services website as well as in hardcopy form that has been passed out to all of our new and current students. Sharing the rubrics with our students is important so that they are not only familiar with the Program SLOs but are also clear about what elements make up each one and what they look like at different levels of proficiency.