Unit: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Program: Civil Engineering (MS)
Degree: Master's
Date: Fri Oct 09, 2015 - 8:01:08 am

1) Below are your program's student learning outcomes (SLOs). Please update as needed.

Students will be able to:
  1. demonstrate in-depth technical knowledge in a subdiscipline of specialization;
  2. evaluate critically and synthesize literature to inform engineering solutions;
  3. present effectively technical work orally in a formal setting;
  4. produce technical reports and/or publishable manuscripts; and
  5. perform engineering research or conduct projects that address open-ended problems.
 

 

1) Institutional Learning Objectives (ILOs) and Program Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

2) Your program's SLOs are published as follows. Please update as needed.

Department Website URL: www.cee.hawaii.edu/content/gradstudy.htm
Student Handbook. URL, if available online: http://www.cee.hawaii.edu/CE_Graduate_Handbook.pdf
Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online:
UHM Catalog. Page Number:
Course Syllabi. URL, if available online:
Other:
Other:

3) Please review, add, replace, or delete the existing curriculum map.

Curriculum Map File(s) from 2015:

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 learning assessment activities between June 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015?

Yes
No (skip to question 16)

6) What best describes the program-level learning assessment activities that took place for the period June 1, 2014 to September 30, 2015? (Check all that apply.)

Create/modify/discuss program learning assessment procedures (e.g., SLOs, curriculum map, mechanism to collect student work, rubric, survey)
Collect/evaluate student work/performance to determine SLO achievement
Collect/analyze student self-reports of SLO achievement via surveys, interviews, or focus groups
Use assessment results to make programmatic decisions (e.g., change course content or pedagogy, design new course, hiring)
Investigate curriculum coherence. This includes investigating how well courses address the SLOs, course sequencing and adequacy, the effect of pre-requisites on learning achievement.
Investigate other pressing issue related to student learning achievement for the program (explain in question 7)
Other:

7) Briefly explain the assessment activities that took place in the last 18 months.

In the summer of 2014, we revised the SLOs and created a rubric for the scoring student work relative to the SLOs.

We assessed 20 Masters students who completed their degrees during this period; including 7 Plan A and 13 Plan B.

We evaluated the results to see how well the SLOs are being achieved and if there are areas where we need modifications to facilitate improvement.

8) What types of evidence did the program use as part of the assessment activities checked in question 6? (Check all that apply.)

Direct evidence of student learning (student work products)


Artistic exhibition/performance
Assignment/exam/paper completed as part of regular coursework and used for program-level assessment
Capstone work product (e.g., written project or non-thesis paper)
Exam created by an external organization (e.g., professional association for licensure)
Exit exam created by the program
IRB approval of research
Oral performance (oral defense, oral presentation, conference presentation)
Portfolio of student work
Publication or grant proposal
Qualifying exam or comprehensive exam for program-level assessment in addition to individual student evaluation (graduate level only)
Supervisor or employer evaluation of student performance outside the classroom (internship, clinical, practicum)
Thesis or dissertation used for program-level assessment in addition to individual student evaluation
Other 1:
Other 2:

Indirect evidence of student learning


Alumni survey that contains self-reports of SLO achievement
Employer meetings/discussions/survey/interview of student SLO achievement
Interviews or focus groups that contain self-reports of SLO achievement
Student reflective writing assignment (essay, journal entry, self-assessment) on their SLO achievement.
Student surveys that contain self-reports of SLO achievement
Other 1:
Other 2:

Program evidence related to learning and assessment
(more applicable when the program focused on the use of results or assessment procedure/tools in this reporting period instead of data collection)


Assessment-related such as assessment plan, SLOs, curriculum map, etc.
Program or course materials (syllabi, assignments, requirements, etc.)
Other 1:
Other 2:

9) State the number of students (or persons) who submitted evidence that was evaluated. If applicable, please include the sampling technique used.

The evaluation is of the students thesis and thesis defense. All students are evaluated at that time by their thesis committee members. After completion of the exam, the committee members discuss and agree upon the varuious ratings on the evaluation form using the approved rubric.

Twenty MS students were evaluated.

10) 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:

11) 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:

12) Summarize the results of the assessment activities checked in question 6. For example, report the percent of students who achieved each SLO.

There were 13 students who completed Plan B and 7 students who completed Plan A and they were all evaluated by their own thesis committee.  The evaluation has 9 performance criteria for the thesis and 2 criteria for the oral defense.  The scores are 1=Unsatisfactory, 2=Developing, 3=Satisfactory, and 4=Good.  Our program goals for any given performance criteria are less than 5% 1’s and at least 80% 3’s and 4’s. In aggregate, the 2014-15 group of graduates met the program performance goals for all 11 criteria. The charts indicate that for all students, there were no scores of 1.  For Plan A students there were just three score of 2 and there were 12 for Plan B. The Plan A students scored more 4’s (35-40%) than the Plan B (31%) students on the three criteria for the thesis/report.  For the four criteria on SLO#5 (perform research on open-ended problems) the Plan A students did only slightly better than the Plan B students. These results should be expected because the Plan A students generally work longer on more difficult problems with more mentoring from the their advisor and committee. The evaluation sheet also has space for comments, however very few comments were received.  The comments are all complementary.

Overall, the results indicate very satisfactory performance of the MS students on the SLOs, with no deficiencies identified that would necessitate program modifications.

 

13) What best describes how the program used the results? (Check all that apply.)

Assessment procedure changes (SLOs, curriculum map, rubrics, evidence collected, sampling, communications with faculty, etc.)
Course changes (course content, pedagogy, courses offered, new course, pre-requisites, requirements)
Personnel or resource allocation changes
Program policy changes (e.g., admissions requirements, student probation policies, common course evaluation form)
Students' out-of-course experience changes (advising, co-curricular experiences, program website, program handbook, brown-bag lunches, workshops)
Celebration of student success!
Results indicated no action needed because students met expectations
Use is pending (typical reasons: insufficient number of students in population, evidence not evaluated or interpreted yet, faculty discussions continue)
Other:

14) Please briefly describe how the program used the results.

The students performance met expectations. The results were shared with the faculty and celebrated

15) Beyond the results, were there additional conclusions or discoveries? This can include insights about assessment procedures, teaching and learning, and great achievements regarding program assessment in this reporting period.

The new SLOs and rubric worked well to give a more detailed evaluation of student performance

16) If the program did not engage in assessment activities, please explain.