As part of its learning assessment program to ensure that students in the Human Development Bachelor of Arts (HD B.A.) program achieve a level of mastery, the faculty of the Human Development program at Pacific Oaks College have adopted a learning assessment program that annually reviews the level of attainment of specific learning outcomes for HD B.A. students. These are:
- a critical understanding of themselves from a developmental as well as a contextual place
- a critical understanding of others from a developmental as well as a contextual place
- the ability to take those understandings to action and begin to work toward positive change for all
One of these outcomes is selected annually by the faculty to be reviewed via the learning assessment plan. Information gleaned from the review assists the department and institution in making changes as well as using the feedback to improve programs and their delivery. The results of this assessment process for the 2008-09 academic year are:
Narrative Evaluations of B.A. graduating students:
Summary of Findings:
- Narrative evaluations illustrated students' ability to connect their experience with theory.
- Students' understanding of multiple identities within different contexts and the impact of their identity development on themselves and others.
- Journal writings demonstrated an ability to reflect on new ideas as well as to look at their own beliefs.
- Students are able to analyze systems and their role in perpetuating as well as changing these systems.
Areas for Improvement:
Core and adjunct faculty need to be better trained to ensure that narrative evaluations of student learning in courses to ensure that they clearly state the student learning outcomes for which the student is being evaluated. The connection to the program level outcome must be explicit or implicit. Program level outcomes also may be directly assessed in the narrative evaluation.
Quality of student learning as assessed through portfolios:
Summary of Findings:
- Student portfolios were analyzed through the use of a rubric.
- Most portfolios demonstrated student competence in understanding of self from a developmental and contextual perspective. One student had an excellent understanding.
Areas for Improvement:
The portfolio system is a newly implemented means of gathering direct evidence of student achievement of program learning outcomes. The faculty is discussing the need to develop a culminating/capstone project for students in their final semester, which will demonstrate their learning and how well they achieved the stated program level outcome.