Department of Communication

Educational Effectiveness Evaluation

 

Bachelor of Arts in Communication

 

The Department of Communication at the University of Alaska Fairbanks will continuously assess student learning in order to ensure the quality of educational efforts in the Department, in order to provide outcome evidence of student educational progress and accomplishment, and in order to have grounding for curricular improvement.

 

I. Purposes of the Educational Effectiveness Evaluation Process

(Educational improvement, curriculum changes, student outcome evidences, Departmental recognition)

            Assessment of educational effectiveness is an opportunity for the Department to collect evidence of the education of our majors.  A careful plan for effectiveness evaluation will have positive results for our students, our department, and for our faculty.  Further, positive results from our on-going effectiveness evaluation process will demonstrate to public beyond the Department that the very significant skills and knowledge of the Communication discipline are available to University of Alaska Fairbanks students.

            In substantiating our results, we will demonstrate the quality of the education we are providing.  Aligned with research findings that place Communication skills and knowledge at the top of the requirements for securing entry-level employment, for upward mobility in employment hierarchies, and for organizational development, the results of our assessment process should match the quality of our product (student improvement in skills and knowledge) with specific needs voiced by the professional world into which our students matriculate.

 

II AUDIENCES         The Department understands three immediate audiences for its Effectiveness Evaluation process: First, the faculty of the Department who will use the process to acquire a fuller understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the undergraduate program and will use such information to improve the quality of the education being provided.  Second, students who choose to participate in the program and who will benefit from the process directly.  And finally, the University which will benefit in being able to demonstrate to further constituencies that the uniquely important skills and knowledge of human communication are being effectively provided the students of our University and of our major at the highest level of quality.

 

III. EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

 

 

Several goals are evident as educational effectiveness evaluation is set in motion.  The purpose of out curriculum and teaching is to help our students meet these goals:

 

 

            Goal #1           Improve rhetorical speaking skills.

 

 

            Goal #2           Synthesize knowledge of Human Communication

theories and methodologies as well as understanding the interests and goals that make Human Communication a distinct discipline.

 

 

            Goal #3           Integrate pragmatic knowledge of human

communication in 1) specific contexts: cultural settings; intercultural settings; settings of human relationships; business and professional settings; health settings; family settings; organizational settings; and in 2) nonverbal symbol systems in any setting, in order to address the primacy of communication in human realities.

 

 

            Goal #4           Recognize and understand the significant

differences in meaning structures represented by gender and other patterns of diversity.

 

 

            Goal #5           Perceive and critique the ethical

dimensions of human communication in any setting.

 

IV. EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES AND CRITERIA FOR THESE GOALS:

 

 

            Goal #1:

* Students will understand and apply principles of ethical and epideictic speaking.

            - in any pubic presentation.

 

 

            Goal #2:

* Students will understand the ontological and epistemological grounds of communication from perspectives of social and human science.

            - will learn the implications of the various

               theoretical perspectives used to research

               human communication.

 

            - will learn the implications of the various

               methodologies used in researching human

               communication.

 

            - will learn to read and understand the research

               produced in human communication inquiry.

 

 

            Goal #3:

* Students will understand and apply knowledge of the interrelationship between human communication and all higher orders of human reality such as self, relationships, human groups and organizations, and society.

            - will have classroom interactions that frame

               the interrelationships between human

               communication and the creation, maintenance,

               and transformation of human social contexts.

 

            - will prepare papers and projects that demonstrate

               understandings of the morphogenic nature of

               human communication and human social

               contexts.

 

            Goal #4:

* Students will learn particularly to understand and apply knowledge regarding the important meaning differences represented by gender and other patterns of diversity.

            - will have classroom interactions that address

               gender and other difference as everyday

               experiential contexts.

 

            - will prepare papers and projects that explore the

               communication matters involved in the experience

               of gender and other difference.

 

            - will integrate knowledge of gender and other

               difference in portfolio and senior research essay.

 

 

            Goal #5:

 

* Students will understand and apply knowledge of the ethical dimensions of human communication in any human context.

            - will have classroom interactions that proffer

               the ethical as grounding of all human

               communication.

 

            - will prepare papers and projects regarding the

               ethical dimensions of human communication.

 

            - will integrate knowledge of the ethical dimensions

               of human communication in portfolio and senior

               essay.

 

V. INDICATORS AND MEASURES OF GOAL ATTAINMENT:

 

            Goal #1: Rhetorical Speaking Skills

 

Entry Assessment:                                                         Exit Assessment:

 

* Course embedded presentation                                  * Course embedded presentation

      (Comm. 180 videotaped)                                              (Comm. 482 video)

 

            Goal #2: Knowledge of Theory and Methodologies:

 

Entry Assessment:                                                         Exit Assessment:

 

*Recognition (Comm 180,                                            * Application

  essay projects)                                                           (Comm. 482 essay, projects)

 

            Goal #3: Pragmatic Knowledge of Human Communication Contexts:

 

Entry Assessment:                                                         Exit Assessment:

 

* Recognition (Comm. 180)                                          * Course Embedded (Comm. 482)

                                                                                    * Senior Research Essay

 

            Goal #4: Knowledge of Significant Meaning Patterns:

 

Entry Assessment:                                                         Exit Assessment:

 

* Recognition (Comm. 180)                                          * Course Embedded (Comm. 482)

                                                                                    * Senior Research Essay

 

            Goal #5: Perceive and Critique Ethical Dimensions of Human Communication

                                    across settings

 

Entry Assessment:                                                         Exit Assessment:

 

* Recognition (Comm. 180)                                          * Course Embedded (Comm. 482)

                                                                                    * Senior Research Essay

 

VI. Standards and levels of performance for each indicator

 

                        Goal #1:

                                    Admission:

 

* Recognizable perception and application of National Communication Association

            competencies (in Comm. 180)

 

                                    Graduation:

 

* Understanding and skillful application of National Communication Association

            competencies (in Comm. 482)

 

                        Goal #2:

                                    Admission:

 

* Recognition of the range and relationships between the various theoretical

            perspectives in human communication research.

 

* Recognition of the range and relationships between the various methodological

            practices in human communication research.

 

* Recognition of the necessary connectedness between the epistemological

            perspective and the methodology and method choices in human

            communication research,

 

                                    Graduation:

 

* Demonstrate the ability to formulate human communication research from ethical

            question formation through appropriate analysis of results. (COMM482)

 

                        Goal #3:

                                    Admission:

 

* Recognize the relationship between human communication and the creation,

            maintenance, and transformation of human contexts.

 

                                    Graduation:

 

* Demonstrate the ability to apply human communication research findings in the

            resolution of problems across human contexts.

                        Goal #4:

                                    Admission:

 

* Recognize that human communication originates in meaning structures that vary

            according to patterns of human experience in culture (e.g., gender).

 

                                    Graduation:

 

* Demonstrate understandings and abilities necessary to recognizing, analyzing, and

            planning communication that acknowledges meaning patterns and minimizes

            them as boundary problems in human communication.

 

                        Goal #5:

                                    Admission:

 

* Recognize that all human communication is a matter of ethical interaction.

 

                                    Graduation:

 

* Demonstrate the ability of analyzing and critiquing the ethical dimensions of human

            communication across settings and contexts.

 

* Demonstrate the ability to conceptualize ethical research and ethical research methods.

 

VII. Assessment Process and Procedures

 

Process

 

            The curriculum of the B. A. in Communication has been changed specifically to prepare for an on-going Student Learning Outcomes Assessment process.  First, we have moved to update the major courses available and to drop courses no longer taught in the Department.  The degree has been made more rigorous by requiring some courses previously optional (both COMM 351 and COMM 330).  The optional seminar course (COMM 482) has been made a senior, capstone research course.  The number of required courses has been increased and several lower division elective courses have been dropped (e.g., COMM 251).  Interpersonal Communication  courses COMM 222 and COMM 422 have been dropped and replaced with a more targeted course, COMM 322, Relationship Communication.

 

            Assessment files have been prepared to begin the accumulation of videotapes and papers that will be the materials used by Communication faculty to assess the efficacy of the degree in regards to student learning outcomes assessment.  Materials (e.g., final papers from three significant courses required of Communication majors: COMM180, COMM425, and COMM482) will be kept in these central files as educational records (i.e., not available to anyone except faculty).  Students who wish to have the educational record from their Portfolio files may request a copy from the Department.  Materials will be kept a total of three years and then begin rotating our as new material is added.

 

Procedure

 

            Final papers (xeroxes), from the designated required classes will be kept, by course and year, in departmental files.  Videotaped presentations from COMM 180 and COMM 482 will be kept in the same files.  The files will provide information allowing a diagnosis of student progress through the degree curriculum in regard to learning outcomes as specified in III, IV, V, VI above.  At two-year intervals, the full faculty will sit and assess the accumulated record, looking at the progress of specific students, and of Communication students generally.  Assessment will occur between the end of Finals and the end of the contract date.  Each faculty member will address evidence of student learning and make curricular suggestions in a brief report to the Management Team Leader (Department Chair).  Serious changes in curriculum will be made after full faculty discussion and a vote on any changes.