Degree Program Assessment Reports : View Reports

Unit: Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language
Program: Hawaiian (MA)
Degree: Master's
Date: Thu Nov 19, 2020 - 4:55:24 pm

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

1. Reading: Demonstrate comprehension of traditional literary texts.

(1. Demonstrate comprehensive knowledge in one or more general subject areas related to, but not confined to, a specific area of interest., 4. Critically analyze, synthesize, and utilize information and data related to one’s field of study.)

2. Listening: Demonstrate understanding and interpretation of various levels of spoken Hawaiian, including but not limited to native speaker dialog

(1. Demonstrate comprehensive knowledge in one or more general subject areas related to, but not confined to, a specific area of interest., 5. Proficiently communicate and disseminate information in a manner relevant to the field and intended audience.)

3. Speaking: Offer a quality* public presentation in Hawaiian

4. Writing: Demonstrate competence in formal writing skills that have practical/contemporary application

5. Culture: Demonstrate the ability to apply cultural norms in a range of communicative events

6. Research: Construct a culturally sensitive research project that utilizes/analyzes relevant existing resources and contributes to the overall Hawaiian knowledge base

(2. Demonstrate understanding of research methodology and techniques specific to one’s field of study., 3. Apply research methodology and/or scholarly inquiry techniques specific to one’s field of study., 4. Critically analyze, synthesize, and utilize information and data related to one’s field of study., 6. Conduct research or projects as a responsible and ethical professional, including consideration of and respect for other cultural perspectives., 7. Interact professionally with others.)

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

Department Website URL: https://manoa.hawaii.edu/hshk/kawaihuelani/degrees/masters-hawaiian/

Student Handbook. URL, if available online: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/nhss/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2017-KCHL-Grad-Student-Handbook.pdf

Information Sheet, Flyer, or Brochure URL, if available online:

UHM Catalog. Page Number:

Course Syllabi. URL, if available online:

Other: We are adding our program SLOs to the UHM 2021-2022 Cours Catalog; Native Hawaiian Student Services Website: http://manoa.hawaii.edu/nhss/graduate-students/masters-hawaiian/

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

Curriculum Map File(s) from 2020:

File (11/20/2020)

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.

1-50%

51-80%

81-99%

100%

5) Does the program have learning achievement results for its program SLOs? (Example of achievement results: "80% of students met expectations on SLO 1.")(check one):

Yes, on some(1-50%) of the program SLOs

Yes, on most(51-99%) of the program SLOs

Yes, on all(100%) of the program SLOs

6) Did your program engage in any program learning assessment activities between November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2020?

Yes

No (skip to question 17)

7) What best describes the program-level learning assessment activities that took place for the period November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2020? (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 other pressing issue related to student learning achievement for the program (explain in question 8)

Other:

8) Briefly explain the assessment activities that took place since November 2018.

Since our last Assessment report, we have continued to assess our MA program SLOs through evaluation of final theses/Plan B papers and oral defenses of our graduate students through the use of faculty-developed rubrics in order to see how well and to what extent our students were meeting the MA program SLOs by the end of their graduate studies. After an in-depth review, analysis, and synthesis of rubric results collected during the first four years of this activity, we revised our rubric assessment process and tools in 2016. We implemented these revisions in the evaluation of the group of students reported on in our 2018 Assessment Report and continued to do so with a new group of students who defended and graduated with their MAs in Hawaiian since our last Assessment Report. We present their results and our initial analysis here.

9) What types of evidence did the program use as part of the assessment activities checked in question 7? (Check all that apply.)

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

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

Assessment-related such as assessment plan, SLOs, curriculum map, etc.

Program or course materials (syllabi, assignments, requirements, etc.)

Other 1:

Other 2:

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

We collected new evidence from eleven (11) MA students who successfully completed and defended their research and then graduated since our last Assessment Report. Faculty sitting on these students’ committees met to review and discuss both the paper and the defense before agreeing as a committee on levels of performance for each product overall and in terms of each Program SLO.

11) 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:

12) 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:

13) Summarize the results from the evaluation, analysis, interpretation of evidence (checked in question 12). For example, report the percentage of students who achieved each SLO.

We assessed eleven students (N=11) who defended and graduated with MAs in Hawaiian since our last Assessment Report. Please see Tables 1 and 2 below for a summary of the results of our assessment of these eleven students’ theses/Plan B final papers and oral defenses/public presentations.

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=11)

Student Learning Objectives	Exemplary/ Distinguished	Between Exemplary & Competent	Competent/ Proficient	Developing/Not Yet Competent
Writing: Formal Research Paper	5		6
Culture: Worldview, Cultural Norms	4	1	6
Research: Culturally sensitive research project	6	1	4
Reading	6		5
OVERALL	6		5

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=11)

Student Learning Objectives	Exemplary/ Distinguished	Between Exemplary & Competent	Competent/ Proficient	Developing/Not Yet Competent
Speaking: Public Presentation	6		4
Culture: Worldview, Cultural Norms	6	1	4
Listening Comprehension	8		3
OVERALL	6	2	3

All students in this group were defined as competent or exemplary in the eyes of their committee members in all SLO categories - writing, research, speaking, listening, culture, and overall performance. In addition, the majority of students scored above competent (either exemplary or between exemplary and competent) for most of the SLO categories, including the overall assessment of their papers and defenses. As these results confirm, this group of MA graduates in Hawaiian demonstrated a high quality of research and Hawaiian language skill overall. 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.

When comparing these results to the group assessed in our last Assessment Report, this new group of students maintained a similar level of high achievement across all SLO categories, again placing them well above the results from the first four years of our implementation of this rubric assessment process. In addition, this new group had no students assessed at the developing/not yet competent level, which is an improvement from the previous group. Another noteworthy improvement was that the percentage of students who were assessed at the exemplary level for both their speaking and their defense/public presentation overall went up significantly from our last report (24 points for speaking and 12 points overall). It is reassuring to see that the changes we made to our curriculum and requirements in the previous years are continuing to be validated by our assessment of student learning at the end of their MA journey.

14) 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:

15) Please briefly describe how the program used its findings/results.

Since our last Assessment Report, our activities have focused on collecting and evaluating evidence of student learning (i.e., MA thesis & defense) using our faculty-developed rubrics. We are now preparing to transition into the next stage of the assessment cycle: interpreting results. As you may recall, we last went through this step in 2016 after 4 years of successful implementation of our rubric assessment process. We reviewed, analyzed, and synthesized all of our rubric results from these first four years and then made decisions about how to use the findings in the improvement of our rubric assessment process, the assessment tools themselves, as well as our graduate program overall. Another four years has passed, so we are due for our next round of results interpretation along with a discussion about how to put our latest set of findings into use. We look forward to reporting on this in our next Assessment Report.

16) 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.

It was at the end of this reporting period that the impacts of COVID hit UH and forced us all to transition to a primarily online environment, which impacted how student defenses were offered. One student in the group reported here had to defend his research via zoom with both his committee and audience participating remotely. But, despite the changes in mode of delivery, we are proud that this student and his committee were still able to offer a successful and engaging defense. In fact this student’s defense was evaluated among the top defenses of the entire group reported on here. It is reassuring and deserving of some celebration that, despite the need to pivot quickly, this student was still able to demonstrate his learning and achievement and his committee was also still able to evaluate his learning and achievement using our rubrics.

Over the last four years, we did take note of a few areas in our rubric assessment procedures that could be tightened up in order to ensure clarity of process for our faculty as well as timely evaluation of student work and submission of evaluations to the department’s assessment coordinator. This will be one of the topics of conversation when we begin our results interpretation phase next year, and we already started to brainstorm ideas about how to address these process issues.

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

1. Reading: Demonstrate comprehension of traditional literary texts.

2. Listening: Demonstrate understanding and interpretation of various levels of spoken Hawaiian, including but not limited to native speaker dialog

3. Speaking: Offer a quality* public presentation in Hawaiian

4. Writing: Demonstrate competence in formal writing skills that have practical/contemporary application

5. Culture: Demonstrate the ability to apply cultural norms in a range of communicative events

6. 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.

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

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.

5) Does the program have learning achievement results for its program SLOs? (Example of achievement results: "80% of students met expectations on SLO 1.")(check one):

6) Did your program engage in any program learning assessment activities between November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2020?

7) What best describes the program-level learning assessment activities that took place for the period November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2020? (Check all that apply.)

8) Briefly explain the assessment activities that took place since November 2018.

9) What types of evidence did the program use as part of the assessment activities checked in question 7? (Check all that apply.)

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

11) Who interpreted or analyzed the evidence that was collected? (Check all that apply.)

12) How did they evaluate, analyze, or interpret the evidence? (Check all that apply.)

13) Summarize the results from the evaluation, analysis, interpretation of evidence (checked in question 12). For example, report the percentage of students who achieved each SLO.

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

15) Please briefly describe how the program used its findings/results.

16) 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.

17) If the program did not engage in assessment activities, please justify.