PSYCHOLOGY SELF STUDY 2013 - California State … · Psychology major and the graduate programs in...

PSYCHOLOGY SELF STUDY

2013

Contributors:

Marya Endriga (Department Chair) Kelly Cotter (Assessment Coordinator)

Greg Kim-Ju (Chair, Curriculum Committee) Phillip Akutsu (Curriculum Committee)

Rebecca Cameron (Curriculum Committee) Sharon Furtak (Curriculum Committee)

Caio Miguel (Chair, Graduate Committee) Patricia Hughes (Psychology ASC-II)

Najia Nafiz (Psychology ASA)

Psychology Self Study,

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. General information about the academic unit and responses to most recent Program Review .............. 4

1.1. Summary overview of the academic unit’s mission and scope, including all degree programs and GE/GR and service courses ............................................................................................................ 4

1.1.1. Psychology Department Mission ........................................................................................... 4 1.1.2. Overview of Degree Programs .............................................................................................. 4 1.1.3. Curriculum ............................................................................................................................. 4 1.1.4. Overview of GE/GR and Service Courses ............................................................................. 5

1.2. Faculty ............................................................................................................................................ 6 1.3. Students .......................................................................................................................................... 7 1.4. Staff ................................................................................................................................................ 8 1.5. Facilities ......................................................................................................................................... 8 1.6. E-Learning and Course Technology ............................................................................................... 9 1.7. Summary of Responses to Recommendations from 2007 Program Review .................................. 9

1.7.1. Mission and Strategic Planning ............................................................................................. 9 1.7.2. Student Learning .................................................................................................................... 9 1.7.3. Faculty Development and Support ...................................................................................... 11 1.7.4. Relations with Community .................................................................................................. 12 1.7.5. Program responses to Psychology graduate curricula ......................................................... 12 1.7.6. Program responses to Psychology graduate admissions ...................................................... 13

2. A Summary of Learning Outcomes for Each Degree Program ............................................................ 14 2.1. Psychology Major ......................................................................................................................... 14 2.2. Psychology Minor........................................................................................................................ 15 2.3. ABA Certificate ............................................................................................................................ 15 2.4. General/Predoctoral Preparation MA ........................................................................................... 15 2.5. Industrial/Organizational (I/O) MA .............................................................................................. 16 2.6. ABA MA ...................................................................................................................................... 16 2.7. A Summary of the Most Recent Alumni Surveys (2007, 2012) .................................................. 16 2.8. Summary of Feedback from Assessment Report .......................................................................... 17 2.9. A Detailed Description of the 2013-2018 Assessment Plan ......................................................... 17

3. Focused Inquiry .................................................................................................................................... 20 3.1. Course Offerings .......................................................................................................................... 22

3.1.1. Curricular Comparison with Accrediting and Other Professional Organizations ................ 22 3.1.2. Curricular Comparison with Similar Institutions ................................................................. 22 3.1.3. Curricular Comparison to Psychology Graduate School Requirements .............................. 23 3.1.4. Curricular Alignment with the Transfer Model Curriculum for Psychology ...................... 24 3.1.5. Analysis and Recommendations .......................................................................................... 24

3.2. Learning Goals and Career Preparation ........................................................................................ 26 3.2.1. Essential Learning Goals .................................................................................................... 26 3.2.2. Alumni Feedback, Alumni Center Survey (ACS) .............................................................. 26 3.2.3. Analysis and Recommendations ......................................................................................... 30

3.3. Curriculum Efficiency ................................................................................................................. 31 3.3.1. Steps Taken to Improve Efficiency .................................................................................... 31 3.3.2. Tracking Demand for Major Courses ................................................................................. 32 3.3.3. Implications of Focused Inquiry Sections 3.1 and 3.2 for Curriculum Efficiency ............. 34


3.4. Focused Inquiry Analysis and Recommendations ....................................................................... 35 4. List of Figures

1.1.4a. Enrollment ............................................................................................................................ 5 1.1.4b. FTES .................................................................................................................................... 5 1.2a. Student-Faculty Ratio .............................................................................................................. 7 1.7.2a. Psychology Advising and Mentoring Model ..................................................................... 10 2.9a. WASC Criteria for Developing Program Assessment .......................................................... 18

5. List of Tables 1.1.2a. Summary of Psychology Programs ...................................................................................... 4 1.1.4a. Service and GE Courses (accompanying AY FTES) .......................................................... 5 1.3a. Psychology Student Profile ..................................................................................................... 7 2.9a. Initial Draft of Five Year Learning Goals and Assessment Plan: Psychology Major ........... 19 2.9b. Initial Draft of Five Year Learning Goals and Assessment Plan: ABA Certificate .............. 19 2.9c. Initial Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: General Psychology MA ................................. 20 2.9d. Initial Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: I/O Psychology MA ........................................ 20 2.9e. Initial Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: ABA Psychology MA ..................................... 20 3.2.2a. To what extent did your major help you develop the following types of knowledge and proficiencies? ................................................................................................................................ 27 3.3.2a. Senior unmet demand for non-elective major courses and course categories, Fall 2012 (N=717) ......................................................................................................................................... 32 3.3.2b. Trajectory of semester Psyc 4, 101 and Capstone was taken during enrollment at Sacramento State ............................................................................................................................ 33

6. References ........................................................................................................................................... 36


Psychology Self Study Option C, 2012-2013 Cycle

1. General information about the academic unit and responses to most recent Program Review.

1.1. Summary overview of the academic unit’s mission and scope, including all degree programs and GE/GR and service courses.

1.1.1. Psychology Department Mission (Revised September 2012, See Section 1.6.1).

1.1.2. Overview of degree programs. Currently the Psychology department offers six active

programs. Our undergraduate programs are the Psychology major, Psychology minor and the Behavior Analysis certificate. Our graduate programs are the General MA in Psychology; MA in Psychology, Industrial/Organizational Option and the MA in Psychology, Applied Behavior Analysis Option. Our MA, Counseling Psychology Option has been suspended indefinitely due to the budget and insufficient full- and part-time faculty to staff the required 60-unit program. Table 1.1.2a. Summary of Psychology Programs Program Units* Current

students** Degrees/certificates conferred** (2007-2012)

UG Major 46-50 (85% upper division)

1,599 (Fall 2011 data)

1436

UG Minor 21 (71% upper division)

data not available in Factbook, estimated 65 minors in Fall 2011

data not available from Factbook

UG ABA Certificate 15 (100% upper division)



Grad MA, General plus ABA option 30 minimum 52 104 Grad MA, I/O Option 30 minimum 12 Grad MA, Counseling Option 60 20 *Source: University Catalog, 2012-13; **Source: Fall 2012 Factbook.

1.1.3. Curriculum. The current undergraduate major curriculum (46-50 units) contains 3 required lower division courses, 2 required upper division courses, and seven content categories: upper division research methods, biological processes, cognitive and learning processes, developmental processes, individual and social processes, Human Diversity and capstone. Majors are also required to take 2 elective courses. The graduate curriculum (minimum 30 units) consists of 3 core courses, elective courses specified by each of the track options and a culminating requirement, most commonly a thesis project. Since our previous program review, several changes have been made to the undergraduate Psychology major and the graduate programs in response to program review recommendations, which are described below. In addition, we chose to devote our Focused Inquiry to the examination of our undergraduate curriculum content, structure and efficiency.

To educate, research, and practice in the field of Psychology with dedication and enthusiasm. We facilitate students’ intellectual and personal growth. We prepare students for graduate studies, the workforce, managing citizenship responsibilities and life demands. We advance the many areas of our discipline through active and creative scholarship. We serve diverse communities through meaningful collaborations with people and organizations. Through teaching, scholarship, and service we promote human equity, health and well-being, effective functioning, and respect for diversity.


1.1.4. Overview of GE/GR and service courses. The Psychology BA program serves many other programs (undergraduate and graduate) within the university in the form of required core courses, category alternatives, electives, program prerequisites, supporting courses and recommended courses. The eight specific departments/programs that list our courses (number of courses in parentheses) are: Counselor Education (3), Criminal Justice (11), Family & Consumer Sciences Dietetics (1), Gerontology (3), Kinesiology-Therapeutic Exercise and Rehabilitation (1), Health Science (2), Speech Pathology & Audiology (1), and Women’s Studies (2). In addition to service courses, the Psychology BA program has five GE courses in Areas D and E.

Table 1.1.4a. Service and GE courses (accompanying AY FTES)

* Sources: University Catalog, Instructional Program Priorities (IPP) report (2007-2011), Cognos (2011-2013).

Figure 1.1.4a. Enrollments Figure 1.1.4b. FTES

Data Source: Psychology Factbooks, 2011, 2012.

As the figures above show, the number of undergraduate majors has climbed steadily over the past 5-6 years. Total enrollments are also high: Factbook data show a total 10-term enrollment (2007-2012) of 41,008. Commensurate with high enrollments, annual FTES averaged about 1500 over the past 5 years. In

1190 1230 1248

1511 15011599

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Major Enrollment

0

500

1000

1500

2000

FTES AY 2006-07 to 2010-11

Lower Div

Upper Div

Total

Course Service GE Average Annual FTES*

COMMENT

PSYC 1 Introductory Psych. Basic Processes 133.40 (S09, F09) replaced by PSYC 2 ; GE Area D1A

PSYC 2 Introductory Psych. 318.42 GE Area D1A PSYC 5 Introductory Psych. Individual & Social Processes

230.60 (S09, F09) replaced by PSYC 2 ; GE Area D1A

PSYC 100 Cross-Cultural Psych. 50.54 PSYC 103 Perception 26.17 PSYC 108 Organizational Psych. 49.00 PSYC 110 Cognitive Psych. 53.32 PSYC 122 Qualitative Research in Psych. 5.48 PSYC 130 Personality Theories 22.69 PSYC 134 Psych of Human Sexuality 19.40 GE Area E PSYC 135 Psych of Multicultural Groups 47.40 GE Area E PSYC 137 Stress Management 13.50 GE Area E Psych 145 Social Psychology 31.29 PSYC 149 Psych of Adolescence 3.90 (not offered for past 3 semesters) PSYC 150 Psych Aspects of Aging 32.70 PSYC 151 Psych Aspects of Death & Dying 24.40 GE Area E PSYC 157 Psych of Women 21.60 PSYC 168 Abnormal Psych 111.72 PSYC 185 Psych of Exceptional Children 50.10 PSYC 268 Advanced Psychopathology 3.18 PSYC 224 Family Therapy 3.27 TOTAL 1252.08


2011-12, FTES jumped to 1,889.8 as a function of additional One Time Funded Sections. In order to accommodate the demand, we have had to increase class sizes. 2012 Factbook data (p. 7) show that the number of non-supervisory sections has either remained stable or has decreased (averaging 90 sections per term); however, average section sizes have increased at the undergraduate level from 57 lower division and 41 upper division in Fall 2007 to 98 lower division and 53 upper division in Spring 2012 (overall means: 86 lower division, 47 upper division). Graduate section sizes are somewhat more stable, with a 10-term mean of 12. Increasing demand for Psychology courses has not been accompanied by increases in faculty, which has led to problems with impaction. The undergraduate program was granted impaction status effective Fall 2012. Currently, students who intend to declare the major must submit a Supplemental Application and meet eligibility criteria that include a 2.3 GPA, completion of PSYC 2 (Introductory Psychology) and PSYC 8 (Research Methods) with a minimum grade of C within two attempts and at least 30 semester units completed. Applicants that meet these criteria are rank ordered by cumulative GPA and accepted to the major based on the number of available seats in a given semester. In the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 semesters, all students meeting the eligibility criteria were accepted. The 2011 Factbook reports on “Student Flow from Initial Major to Final Degree” shows inflows of 37 (15 freshmen, 22 transfers) and outflows of 46 (22 freshmen, 24 transfers). One year later and coinciding with the beginning of impaction, the outflow rate has increased: The 2012 Factbook shows a total inflow of 41(28 freshmen, 13 transfers) and a total outflow of 72 (44 freshmen, 28 transfers).

1.2. Faculty Currently, the Psychology department has 19 Full-time tenure-track faculty (ranks: 13 Full, 4 Associate, 2 Assistant). The 5-year average for numbers of non-tenure track faculty was 16.2, although this number ranged from 7-21 in a given academic year. Sixty-four percent of the total faculty are female and 25% are minority (2012 Factbook, p. 12). Over the previous 5-year period, tenure track faculty averaged 14.6 WTUs (total=242.9). In addition to classroom teaching, our faculty engage in small group learning and mentoring activities. These include sponsoring research and teaching assistants, thesis students and fieldwork students. Between Fall 2009 and Spring 2013, supervisory course enrollments totaled 1,939 students, an average of 194 students per semester (estimated 5.4 students per FT faculty member). These enrollments generated 392.8 FTES, an average of 39.3 FTES per semester. Despite these efforts to provide small group and 1:1 learning experiences, our student/faculty ratio (SFR) is 31.7, which is 7.9 points higher than the University SFR. Broken down by class level, our mean SFR over the past 10 terms is 62.9 Lower Division, 35.3 Upper Division and 8.2 Graduate. As shown in the figure below, these numbers have climbed in the past 5 years due to stagnant hiring, rising enrollments and larger class sizes, particularly at the undergraduate level.


Figure 1.2a. Student-Faculty Ratio

Source: Psychology Factbook 2012. Another area of concern resulting from sluggish hiring is the decline in percent of instruction by full-time faculty. According to our 2011 Instructional Program Priorities (IPP) report, in 2007 69% of total Psychology WTUs were generated by full-time, tenure-track faculty. Looking at our average over the last 12 terms, however, that figure has dropped to 36%. In the face of these challenges, faculty have worked their hardest to preserve quality instruction for our students. Our 2007 Alumni Center Survey (ACS; 2007 assessment report) rated the quality of faculty competence as 4.3 out of 5 in professional activity, knowledge and currency in the field, encouragement of student learning, and competence as instructors. In the 2012 ACS, 90.4% were somewhat to very satisfied with the quality of faculty instruction. In addition to teaching and mentoring excellence, our tenure-track faculty are successful and productive in research as well. A tenure-track faculty survey in 2011 (N=14) provided information on faculty scholarly accomplishments (2006-2011), summarized as follows:

o 57 peer-reviewed journal articles o 16 book chapters o 6 books o 256 peer-reviewed conference

presentations

o 23 reviewerships/editorships o 12 funded grants o 6 other types of publications (e.g., magazine article)

1.3. Students

Table 1.3a. Psychology Student Profile Undergraduate Graduate Current number of majors 1599 84 % Female 75% 75% % Minority 45.7%

(31.1% Underrepresented) 32.1% (23.8% Underrepresented)

% 18-24 years 77.5% Data not available Average unit load 12.4 7.4 % Full-time students 78% 38.5% Average Course GPA 2.41 (Lower division)

2.71 (Upper division) 3.71

Retention rates First-time freshmen: 84% 1-year, 71% 2-years, 62% 3-years Transfers:

Data not available

F07 S08 F08 S09 F09 S10 F10 S11 F11 S1223.8 30.9 31.1 29.9 32.1 33.3 30.2 34 34.6 36.7

20

25

30

35

40

STU

DEN

T-FA

CULT

Y RA

TIO


89% 1-year, 73% 2-years Average annual number of degrees conferred

288 21

Average median years to degree 4.8 (First-time freshmen) 2.3 (Transfers)

3.8*

Graduation Rate 44% (First-time freshmen 6-year rate entering F05) 62% (Transfer 4-year rate entering F05)

Source: 2012 Psychology Factbook.

*The Master’s degree median years to degree takes into account all specific programs. Thus, it is important to recall that specific programs vary

in the number of required units, e.g., the General Master’s program requires 30 units whereas the Counseling Master’s program requires 60 units.

1.4. Staff The Psychology department is currently staffed by two 12-month full-time Administrative Support Coordinators and two part-time student assistants (work study). We used to have a 10-month half-time administrative support assistant, but lost that position about three years ago, when it was reassigned to the SSIS Dean’s office. The responsibilities of our ASC-II position include support for budgeting, scheduling, FT and PT hiring, impaction processing, immediate supervision of other office staff, and assistance to the department chair. The responsibilities of our ASC-I position include “front office” duties of answering student questions and back-up to student assistant reception duties. This position also provides support during the graduate student admissions process and the heavy workload of processing add/drop forms during the beginning weeks of the semester. The student assistants provide front office reception and assistance to the ASC-I and ASC-II. Our new status as an impacted program has increased staff workload significantly. Each semester, upwards of 500 online Supplemental Applications must be individually processed, which includes review of all transcripts to identify completion of prerequisite courses and hand calculation of GPAs. Coinciding with impaction processing is the processing of individual add/drop forms (because our campus does not use the permission number system). These two sets of tasks take approximately 200 hours of staff time at the beginning of each semester, most of which comes on top of regular job duties. This semester, the SSIS Dean’s office agreed to provide a temporary part-time staff position to assist with processing impaction applications and add/drop forms for a 3-4 month period. However, unless the University decides to change the add/drop process and how it processes impaction applications, we will continue to need this additional staff position in future semesters. In addition to office staff, the animal colony is currently staffed by a student assistant that is funded by a faculty grant and the College. As this grant is ending soon, new funding for this vital position needs to be identified.

1.5. Facilities The Psychology Department is located in Amador Hall. The main office (AMD 350) houses the office staff and full-time faculty have single occupant offices, primarily on the third floor. Part-time faculty, teaching associates and lab instructors share office space. Office spaces are equipped with phone, computer, monitor, printer, and basic office furniture. Full-time faculty have lab spaces with some office furniture and, in most cases, computers. The first floor of Amador hall houses an animal colony (rats) and neuroscience research and teaching labs. On the second floor is a clinic, which was formerly used by Counseling master’s students and is now used by the applied behavior analysis faculty who see clients with feeding disorders and autism. The department has 5 instructional lab rooms (4-16 capacity). Amador Room 358 houses the Prospects Peer Mentoring and Advising program. The Psychology department classroom allocations consist of 7 classrooms, 2 of which are large capacity (60-122 seats) and 5 are


smart classrooms. Facilities Services’ policies on building upkeep along with additional support from the College take care of most of the department’s facility-related needs. However, a recent spate of thefts and vandalism has raised concerns about building security and has resulted in unrecovered losses for the Department and College. The addition of security cameras and a few doors that have been switched to fob-type locks have improved security, but plans to re-key faculty offices have not been realized.

1.6. E-Learning and Course Technology Our department began offering E-learning courses beginning Fall 2008. Since then we have offered 14 sections of 7 different courses (6 online, 1 hybrid) in an E-learning format. These courses are: PSYC 1 (now 2), 2, 5 (now 2), 103, 108 (hybrid), 110, and 134. The courses have been offered during the regular academic year as well as during winter and summer sessions. E-learning courses have been offered with both smaller and larger caps, ranging from 33 – 470 students. Our total enrollment in E-learning courses from Fall 2008 – Winter 2013 is 2,034 (406.95 FTES). (Source: Cognos; March, 2013). A faculty survey conducted for the 2011 IPP report yielded information about faculty use of technologies for instruction. The most commonly used technologies were: SacCT, MS Office programs (esp. PowerPoint, Excel, Word), Statistical Software (SPSS), Web-based search engines, web-based survey software, Video sources (YouTube, Public TV, DVD), and web-based demonstration sites (e.g., CogLab). Technologies for communication included email, Google groups, Facebook, Sacsend, SacCT, and Outlook. Technologies for advising, tracking student information and progress were CMS, SacVault, and My Sac State Advising tool.

1.7. Summary of responses to recommendations from 2007 Program Review

1.7.1. Mission and strategic planning. The following actions were initiated and/or completed in response to recommendations for strategic planning to address departmental mission, committees and a development program for faculty work/travel.

Strategic planning was conducted primarily during faculty summer retreats in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and was additionally discussed in department meetings. We reviewed the 2006 Mission Statement and held small group discussions, reflecting on our specific disciplines and the communities we serve. We specifically brainstormed responses to the following questions: 1) Who are we? 2) What do we do? 3) How do we do it? 4) Whom do we do it for? During the 2011-12 AY, responses from the retreat were used to draft a new mission statement using the Delphi group process, with final edits conducted during the summer 2012 Faculty Retreat. This draft was unanimously approved at our Department meeting on September 12, 2012.

1.7.2. Student learning. Recommendations in this area were to strengthen academic and career advising, examine undergraduate course scheduling patterns and prerequisite structure, “close the loop” between assessment and curricular/program change, create student listserves, establish an undergraduate coordinator position, increase faculty-student contact and proceed to develop and implement a mastery strategy for teaching of Introductory Psychology. Graduate program recommendations included examination of admissions processes, core courses and thesis requirements.

Advising and Student Communication. Significant work has been accomplished during the current program review cycle on improving academic and career advising. By 2011, the department had created a multi-layered advising model featuring a mandatory lower division 1-unit group advising course, PSYC 4 Navigating Psychology: The Major and Careers, and a peer mentoring center, Prospects, that consists of two new courses PSYC 198A for mentees and PSYC 198B for mentors. In addition, we have improved our communication with students through SacSend messaging, targeted emails (e.g., from course


waitlists), bulletin boards and student organizations that utilize Facebook or have their own websites. We have worked with our departmental student organizations to increase contact between faculty and students to good effect (e.g., Psi Chi student honor society hosts faculty-student socials 1-2 times per year and the Psychology Society club hosts a Q&A series with individual faculty members representing their areas of expertise). Our primary source of small group and 1:1 faculty-student contact comes through our supervisory courses in teaching and research (Section 1.2, above). Figure 1.7.2a. Psychology Advising and Mentoring Model

Curriculum changes, class size and course scheduling, sequencing, and prerequisites. Since 2006, the Department has continuously examined its undergraduate course scheduling process to identify repetitive patterns that do not allow for areas of emphasis or that may have created delays in program completion. The following steps were taken:

a) Program impaction was approved by the Chancellor’s Office effective Fall 2012, which will reduce majors and course bottlenecks and facilitate program completion.


b) A new required advising course was implemented Fall 2010, PSYC 4 “Navigating Psychology,” which assists majors to choose and sequence their courses efficiently, as well as providing information on careers.

c) Effective Fall 2012 we omitted the lab portion of our required PSYC 101 course “Foundations of Psychological Research: I” which allows for larger enrollments. We developed a new course PSYC 121 “Methods and Statistics in Psychological Research”, a project-based experience of psychology that incorporates many of the lab-type experiences previously taught in PSYC 101 labs. These curricular changes reduce our largest bottlenecks and facilitate timely completion of the Psychology major.

d) We elected to retain the small course caps in the lab sections of PSYC 102 (moved to the capstone category) and PSYC 181. These experiences are necessary for majors heading toward research-oriented doctoral programs or data-oriented jobs in the field as they provide strong technical skills and intense training in applied statistics.

e) While the Department offers elective and supervisory courses representing specific sub-disciplines of psychology, faculty do not generally guide students to specific concentrations, which is in line with the Department’s mission to provide majors with a general, comprehensive background in the field.

f) Concerted steps have also been taken to monitor and enforce through CMS whether the prerequisite requirements for core major courses are being observed.

g) We reduced our introductory psychology requirement from two courses (Catalog 2006-2010: PSYC 1 “Biological Processes” and PSYC 5 “Social Processes”) to one (Fall 2010, combined PSYC 1 and PSYC 5 into PSYC 2 “Introductory Psychology”).

h) The Department piloted and instituted a mastery-based approach with PSYC 2 “Introductory Psychology” that proved to be a pedagogically sound approach for use in large class sections. Data comparing mastery-based and traditional sections of PSYC 2 since 2010 revealed similar levels of student performance based on pre-post testing. Recently, other courses have been offered using this mastery-based approach: PSYC 103, 106, 108, 110, 134 and 157.

1.7.3. Faculty development and support. These recommendations addressed faculty

workload issues by suggesting, for example, using megasections and two-year course scheduling, reducing complexity of governing structure, reviewing distribution of supervisory course responsibilities, enhancing faculty advising capabilities, hiring more faculty and developing sources of funding for faculty work, e.g., assigned time.

We have been able to reduce faculty workload since the previous program review from a steady 4/4 teaching load to a 3/4 and then a 3/3 load, primarily through increasing the number of mega- and mini-mega sections and supervisory course units. This generates additional full-time faculty WTUs, which we use as assigned time for departmental coordinator positions (i.e., Vice Chair, Graduate Coordinator and Clinic Coordinator) and up to 3 units of discipline-based research for each full-time faculty member. During the 2011 summer retreat and academic year, we examined our committee structure to reduce committee seats. While we voted to reduce committee size and combine committees in some cases (e.g., we combined our development, scholarship and website committees/coordinators into a single committee), the department voted to keep our committee structure largely intact, as faculty members wanted to make sure that governance was shared broadly. Departmental discussions during the 2011-12 AY also included proposals to create an undergraduate coordinator position to reduce some of the advising load. In addition, we discussed creating new classroom courses, e.g., in research, fieldwork and graduate theses, in order to alleviate some of the individual supervisory course load. While faculty members were generally supportive of these ideas, we do not have sufficient departmental funds to hire an undergraduate coordinator (SSP position), although


the possibility of funding such a position through the College is being discussed. In addition, we do not have enough full-time faculty members to teach these new courses and still cover the existing curriculum. We are currently working with staff from the Registrar’s office to increase our online advising capabilities (e.g., online approval of graduation petitions). Since 2007, we added three new tenure track faculty members (clinical, developmental/health, and neuroscience) and have just completed a successful search for a fourth tenure track position in behavior analysis to begin in 2013-14. However, since Spring 2008 eight full-time faculty have retired. Our primary source of departmental funding for faculty projects comes from the departmental share of CCE funds from summer and winter sessions. Part of this money is used for faculty discretionary funds for teaching and research and typically ranges from $400-$700.

1.7.4. Relations with community. Recommendations were made for strengthening connections between students and community organizations and alumni for purposes that included job and internship opportunities, recruiting, advising and mentoring. Scanning for legislative and regulatory impacts on Psychology programs was also recommended. A Psychology faculty survey conducted in Spring 2012 included questions about student success after graduation. Survey results showed that our students find internship and job opportunities primarily in community-based organizations and government agencies, including the following:

• Government Agencies: California Departments of: Education, Consumer Affairs, Fish and Game, Justice, Motor Vehicles, Public Health, Rehabilitation; California Highway Patrol; City of Sacramento; and Child Protective Services.

• Community-Based nonprofit organizations: e.g., Turning Point, EMQ/Families First, River Oak Center for Children, Stanford Homes, Diogenes, The Effort. Typically 60 positions are open in Applied Behavior Analysis organizations.

In many cases, these opportunities come through connections between Psychology faculty members and community organizations with whom they have research, teaching or service relationships. Examples include: Dr. August’s connection with Eskaton through her PSYC 122 Qualitative Research service learning course; Dr. Kim-Ju’s research connection with the 65th Street Corridor project; Dr. Meyers’ and Dr. Hurtz’ research and contract with several State agencies. The behavior analysis faculty members, Dr. Miguel and Dr. Penrod, have the broadest and most structured relationships with a number of local community organizations that provide applied behavior analysis (ABA) services. These connections have resulted in a 100% employment rate for students graduating with Master’s degrees in the ABA concentration. We continue to explore and implement new strategies for connecting students with the community. For example, in Spring of 2013, we added a new page to our website with featured job and internship opportunities (http://www.csus.edu/psyc/job-opportunities.html). We are also building connections between our Prospects peer mentoring and advising program and the Career Center. The responsibility for tracking legislative regulatory impacts on curriculum was assigned to committees that oversee specific concentrations. These have primarily affected graduate curricula. For example, AB 946 was passed in 2012 and requires insurance coverage for behavior analysis services for individuals with autistic spectrum disorders and pervasive developmental disorders. This information was brought to the department’s attention through the ABA committee and quickly led to the approval of a new ABA certificate program for working professionals to be administered through the College of Continuing Education. 1.7.5. Program responses to Psychology graduate curricula. Several recommendations were made regarding our graduate program. These include the increase common core of classes, review graduate courses for additions and deletions to better reflect current developments in field, and the

http://www.csus.edu/psyc/job-opportunities.html


examination of the course scheduling. Additional recommendations were made regarding faculty work load for thesis supervision. To respond to these recommendations, the department has decided to change the General Master’s Track to a more balanced and structured set of requirements. First, the common core of classes will be increased and offered on specific semesters. Three new classes will be proposed to address basic Psychological processes (Biopsychology, Cognitive Psychology and Learning), and included in the set of core courses that students will be required to take. Second, students admitted into the program will progress through courses together in a cohort model. These two changes should help students move through the program in a timely manner, reduce the problem of class availability, and make sure that graduate classes have adequate enrollment. This change will also allow for the reduction of class offerings since students from two cohorts may be scheduled to take the same class. This change will allow PSYC 200 and 202, which are required from graduate students across all tracks, to be offered in 4 out of 6 semesters, rather than 3 out of 4 semesters. The cohort system is already in place for both the I/O and ABA masters programs. In both the ABA and I/O programs, for example, students take PSYC 200, 203, 299, 500 and an elective as part of the common (across all tracks/options) graduate requirement. Specifically ABA and I/O program requirements are offered every other year so students from two cohorts can take each class together maximizing enrollments and minimizing graduate class offerings. Regarding course deletions, since the initial decision in the 2009-2010 AY to suspend admissions to the Counseling track of the Psychology graduate program, the Clinical Committee has been monitoring student progress in order to optimize Psychology department course offerings. At this point, we do not anticipate a future need to offer the following 10 specialty courses: PSYC 201, 220, 223, 225, 227, 236, 236, 250, 253, 400. The following courses, previously utilized by the Counseling track, will still be offered: PSYC 210, 251, 268, 410. The graduate committee is also considering blocks of times in which graduate classes will always be offered, so students can better plan their work schedules. This may include day times on Mondays and Wednesdays, and evening times on Mondays through Thursdays. Program reviewers were supportive of the departments’ emphasis on the scientist-practitioner model, suggesting that we maintain our thesis requirement. However, they suggested that a policy for assigned time be developed for thesis supervision, as well as that faculty with expertise in statistics be on all thesis committees. Currently, our faculty receive a one course reduction per semester for purposes of conducting discipline based research. We are able to provide this assigned time internally, in part, by extra WTUs (weighted teaching units) generated by sponsoring students in supervisory coursework, which includes units for independent and sponsored research (299, 294) and culminating experience (500A and B). The recommendation of requiring faculty who are experts in statistics to be members of all thesis committees is only relevant when students are using statistics as part of their research design. Other research designs used by students in our department include qualitative and single-subject, both of which may not require statistical analyses. However, strict education in statistical methods is part of any doctoral program in Psychology, thus our faculty could all be considered experts in the subject matter.

1.7.6. Program responses to Psychology graduate admissions. When assessing our graduate admissions criteria, the program reviewers recommended that applicants write about career plans in essay format appropriate advisors can be readily identified.

The department has since modified its admission requirements to address the issue of better matching students with advisors (see below). As part of their application to the graduate program, candidates are required to write a personal statement describing their research interests, career goals, and list faculty that they would like to work with.


Additionally, as part of our efforts to improve advising in our M.A. programs, students are admitted under the supervision of a specific faculty who is responsible for that students’ progression through the program. Each student meets with his/her advisor once per semester to complete a progress report, which is then sent to the graduate coordinator. In case of lack of progress, students are given specific feedback and goals to remedy any issue that may prevent their timely graduation. Graduate Program Selection Criteria: The Psychology Department uses four major criteria when evaluating applicants to our graduate program. These are GPA, GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and personal statements of intent. Applicants apply to one of the three separate tracks (listed in Section 1.1.2) offered and are evaluated by committee members from that track. All committee members are tenured or tenure-track faculty members in the Psychology department. Each committee uses the criteria described above to rank applicants to their tracks. Then, each committee matches their top applicants to a faculty advisor who will mentor the applicant during their graduate study and serve as the student’s thesis chair. When making final decisions, each committee tries to ensure that applicants’ research and professional goals can be achieved by completing our program. Applicants are sent letters informing them of the department’s recommendations concerning their application to the Psychology graduate program. The letters also notify applicants that official acceptance to the graduate program in the Psychology department will be offered by the Office of Graduate Studies. 2. A summary of learning outcomes of each degree program. The following section summarizes learning outcomes, means of assessing them and results of assessment efforts for each program within the department; specifically,

a) the program’s learning outcomes trajectory; b) a statement of intended student learning outcomes at the program level; c) methods for assessing them, including the use of direct measures; and d) documentation of the use of assessment results in efforts to achieve program improvement

(assistance is available from the Office of Academic Program Assessment). Period of reference: previous five years The trajectory of the learning outcomes for all of the programs in Psychology has been shaped most significantly by the following factors: our most recent departmental self-study (2006), our latest program reviews (2007), the Senate’s adoption (2002) and revision (2009) of the Baccalaureate Learning Goals (BLGs), and the Department’s adoption (2009) and revision (2011) of the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) VALUE Rubrics. A brief overview for each of the programs is included below, and a full description is available from the IPP Learning Outcomes reports.

2.1. Psychology Major • Analytical skills, written communication and explanatory skills, cultural knowledge and

appreciation, and knowledge of Psychology as a discipline were assessed. • Methods of assessment included APA-style research posters (compared to the Inquiry and

Analysis VALUE rubric), final papers from a capstone course (compared to the Written Communication VALUE rubric), and pre-post testing.

• Results revealed that students performed in the Milestone categories of Inquiry & Analysis and Written Communication, and that performance improved significantly from pre- to post-testing with medium to large statistical effect sizes.


• Based on these results, curricular changes include: revising the methods course sequence to preserve lab-type experiences while addressing impaction pressures, identifying courses to include sections on APA-style writing, maintaining lower caps on writing-focused courses, retaining the required Cross-Cultural Psychology course and Human Diversity category in future plans for curricular revisions, retaining sensitivity and awareness activities in courses, and combining two introductory Psychology courses to streamline the curriculum and better align with community colleges.

2.2. Psychology Minor • Introductory knowledge of Psychology, knowledge of individual/social processes, knowledge of

biological/cognitive processes, and knowledge of Psychology applications were assessed with pre-post testing in the PSYC 2/5 (Introductory Psychology), PSYC 100 (Cross-Cultural Psychology), PSYC 134 (Human Sexuality), PSYC 135 (Psychology of Multicultural Groups), PSYC 137 (Stress Management), and PSYC 168 (Abnormal Psychology).

• Results revealed that performance improved significantly from pre- to post-testing with large statistical effect sizes.

• Pre-post testing alone is an insufficient test of learning objectives for the minor because they are not specific to minor program students. Future assessments will include a variable that will allow disaggregation of data.

2.3. ABA Certificate • The ABA certificate program does not currently have an approved assessment plan to

evaluate students’ progress toward the desired learning outcomes (specific content knowledge, clinical skills, knowledge and practice of ethical guidelines set forth by the discipline, and critical thinking skills); however, moving forward, pre-post tests and supervisor ratings will be used to conduct assessments.

2.4. General/Predoctoral Preparation MA • Competence in acquiring, reviewing, and evaluating information from the Psychological

literature, competence in generating and articulating research problems and designing sound research studies, competence in analyzing and interpreting the results of data and drawing inferences and conclusions from empirical results, and competence in writing Psychological reports and giving professional-level oral presentations were assessed.

• Assessments were based on graduate student thesis/projects (evaluated using the Thesis/Project Competencies Assessment, which includes measures of Literature Review, Context for Thesis/Project, Description of Research Problem, Methodology Addressing Problem, Data Analysis, Conclusions from Analysis, Writing of Thesis/Project, Oral Presentation, and Responses to Questions during Oral Defense) and graduate student self-assessments administered at the beginning and end of students’ tenure in the program (evaluated using the Graduate Student Skills Assessment Form, which includes measures of Archival Research, Acquiring Information, Evaluating Research, Generating Research Problems, Designing Research Studies, Performing Data Analysis, Drawing Conclusions, and Professional Writing).

• Results revealed that students achieved competence in all measured areas on the Thesis/Project Competencies Assessment (mean levels ranged from 3.36 – 4.63, corresponding to satisfactory to high levels of competence), and that students reported significant improvements (p = .001) on all measured areas of the Graduate Student Skills Assessment Form.

• Student performance on this set of learning outcomes was found to be strong in the general MA program. We have decided to maintain these aspects of our graduate curriculum structure, including continuing to assign term projects that require literature reviews in nearly all graduate


courses and “budgeting” FTES to allow students to enroll in PSYC 299 (independent study) to complete literature reviews and thesis proposals under close faculty supervision. Furthermore, as a result of assessment findings and graduate course impaction, we have increased the frequency with which we offer two core methods and statistics courses.

2.5. Industrial/Organizational (I/O) MA • Competence in acquiring, reviewing, and evaluating information from the Psychological

literature, competence in generating and articulating research problems and designing sound research studies, competence in analyzing and interpreting the results of data and drawing inferences and conclusions from empirical results, and competence in writing Psychological reports and giving professional-level oral presentations were assessed.

• Assessments were based on graduate student thesis/projects (evaluated using the Thesis/Project Competencies Assessment, which includes measures of Literature Review, Context for Thesis/Project, Description of Research Problem, Methodology Addressing Problem, Data Analysis, Conclusions from Analysis, Writing of Thesis/Project, Oral Presentation, and Responses to Questions during Oral Defense).

• Results revealed that students achieved competence in all measured areas on the Thesis/Project Competencies Assessment (mean levels ranged from 3.33 – 3.65, corresponding to satisfactory to high levels of competence).

• To ensure that these competencies continue to be met, the I/O faculty meet regularly, exchange syllabi, hold meetings with thesis students and their committee members prior to the start of data collection for the thesis, provide regular feedback to thesis students related to thesis data analysis and interpretation, and maintain the requirement in I/O core courses to provide written psychological reports as well as provide professional-level oral presentations.

2.6. ABA MA • Due to a University error in which an academic plan code was not assigned, data are not available

for the Psychology ABA MA program. The error has since been addressed, and data will be available for future reports. When available data on ABA graduate students were incorporated in the General MA assessment, in 2.4 above.

The Psychology Department’s assessment plan is currently under revision to incorporate more explicitly the BLGs and the AAC&U VALUE rubrics. For the past two years, our Curriculum Committee has worked to tailor the original VALUE rubrics to meet the needs of our discipline. This semester, the department approved a policy motion to adopt these modified rubrics for assessment purposes and we have selected a subset of these rubrics as our learning outcomes for our new assessment plan. A detailed presentation of our most recent assessment plan follows that includes a summary of the most recent alumni surveys (2007, 2012), a summary of the feedback for the 2011-2012 Annual Assessment Report, and a detailed description of the 2013-2018 Assessment Plan.

2.7. A summary of the most recent alumni surveys (2007, 2012)

The 2007 ACS (N = 48) showed high quality ratings (4 out of 5) in the areas of Training, Activities/Experiences, Perceived Faculty Competence/Activity, and Guidance/Preparation. Curricular changes based on these results include addition of new electives in cutting edge areas (e.g., Health Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology), protecting FTES allotment for supervisory courses, increasing


assigned time for discipline based research, developing a new group advising course (PSYC 4), and launching a peer mentoring and advising center (Prospects).

The most recent alumni survey was distributed to 1,335 alumni in 2012, with 245 former students returning the survey (response rate = 18.4%). Overall, students are satisfied with the quality of the instruction they received, the courses they took, the intellectual challenge posed in courses, their overall experience, and their proficiency development on the BLGs. Specifically, at least 70% of respondents reported that they achieved sufficient or considerable mastery of each learning goal (although creative thinking, oral communication, teamwork, and civic knowledge and engagement were somewhat lower than the other BLGs).

2.8. Summary of Feedback from Assessment Report

The Office of Academic Program Assessment (OAPA) reviewed the 2012 IPP reports for each of Psychology’s programs (except for the ABA graduate program, for which data were unavailable) and provided the following feedback:

Psychology programs were commended for the clarity of their learning outcomes, how well the learning outcomes aligned with the BLGs, the quality of assessment data collection and analysis (e.g., assessing theses using VALUE rubrics, assessing specific skills using pre-post surveys), and the use of assessment data to inform curricular decisions. Moving forward, the OAPA recommends that the Psychology Department adopt program-level assessment methods (as opposed to course-level assessment methods), solicit information regarding the long-term effects of the learning outcomes on alumni surveys, consider developing separate alumni surveys for BA and MA alumni, establish benchmark levels of achievement for all programs, describe the norming process for VALUE rubric use in greater detail, and develop separate assessment plans for the certificate and minor programs.

Based on their thorough review, the OAPA determined that the Psychology major program, the general MA program, and the I/O MA program were between the “emerging” and “developed” levels, according to WASC’s “Rubric for Assessing the Quality of Academic Program Learning Outcomes.” The Psychology minor and the ABA certificate are in the “initial” level, as separate assessment plans for either program had not yet been developed at the time of the IPP reports. The ABA MA program did not have data available for evaluation by the OAPA, and so was not ranked. However, data will be available for future reviews. We have incorporated the feedback from the OAPA to improve our assessment plan for the next five years, a process we describe in detail below.

2.9. A detailed description of the 2013-2018 Assessment Plan

Based on the feedback provided by the OAPA, descriptions from the WASC Rubric for Assessing the Quality of Academic Program Learning Outcomes, faculty discussion during the 2011 and 2012 summer retreats, and the WASC Educational Seminars Retreat on Student Learning and Assessment Level I, the Psychology Department has developed a new 5-year Assessment Plan, described in detail below and available in full in Appendix A.

WASC recommended following a specific set of criteria when developing program assessment, beginning with the university’s mission and concluding with key assignments:


Figure 2.9a. WASC Criteria for Developing Program Assessment

The Psychology Department has followed this recommendation. We began by reviewing the California State University, Sacramento’s mission statement and the recently adopted the BLGs. Next, we revised our department’s mission statement at the 2012 summer retreat (available in Part 1 of this report). Consistent with our mission and with the university BLGs, the department has adopted the following as our essential learning goals:

• Competence in the discipline of Psychology. • Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world through study in Psychological

science. • Intellectual and practical skills, including: inquiry and analysis, critical, philosophical, and

creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative literacy, information literacy, teamwork, and problem solving, practiced extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards of performance.

• Personal and social responsibility, including: civic knowledge and engagement-- local and global, intercultural knowledge and competence, ethical reasoning and action, foundations and skills for lifelong learning anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges.

• Integrative learning, including: synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and specialized studies.

From the list of learning goals above, we have identified specific learning outcomes to assess for each program in Psychology over the next 5-years (described in detail below). In order to assess these learning outcomes in a manner consistent with the university mission, we have revised the AAC&U VALUE rubrics to be consistent with the discipline of Psychology and we have adopted these rubrics for use in course and program assessment. Furthermore, a sub-set of the learning outcomes that we will assess in Psychology over the next 5 years have been identified as priorities for the university as well (critical thinking, quantitative literacy, and written communication).

Next, we created curriculum maps for each of our programs in order to identify courses in which specific learning goals have been introduced, developed and practiced with feedback, and mastered. For example, in the undergraduate major we expect that students will achieve learning outcomes at the level

Key Assignments

Catalog and/or Courses

Program Rubrics: Explicit Criteria

Measurable Program Learning Objectives

Essential Learning Goals

Psychology Department Mission

Baccelaurate Learning Goals

University Mission


of introduction in lower division coursework, those outcomes will be developed in upper division course work, and students will demonstrate mastery at the level appropriate for graduation in capstone courses. At the next department retreat, we will establish benchmarks of performance at levels appropriate for each of our programs in order to provide a standard by which to compare student performance on key assignments. Per recommendations by the University Assessment Coordinator, our program assessment efforts will include both qualitative and quantitative data using both direct and indirect methods of measurement. We also intend to use signature assignments from capstone courses wherever possible. Thus, we have also created measurement maps in order to gather data on appropriate measurement tools for each learning outcome (see Appendix A). Based on these preliminary steps, we have created assessment plans for each of our programs. In the drafts of the plans described below, the learning outcomes are identified for each program, as well as the specific year that each learning outcome will be assessed. Each program has a corresponding detailed plan, in which the specific method(s) of data collection and analysis, timeline, and team members are identified and described. The detailed plans are available in the full Assessment Plan (Appendix A), but we provide an example of an undergraduate (BA) and graduate (general MA) detailed plan below. These plans are presented as drafts and should be considered initial steps in the assessment process. For each plan, the Assessment Coordinator will annually review the initial draft of the assessment plan with the department, who will offer suggestions and revisions before confirming and implementing the plans. Thus, the details of these plans may change from this initial stage.

Table 2.9a. Initial Draft of Five Year Learning Goals and Assessment Plan: Psychology Major

L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 Competence Capstone: 190 pre-

post, Psych GRE score

Capstone: 190 pre-post, Psych GRE

score


score


score


score Critical Thinking Capstone: 107

paper, Exit survey Capstone: 107

paper, Exit survey

Inquiry & Analysis Capstone: 102 paper,

102 final exam

Capstone: 102 paper,

102 final exam

Written Communication

Capstone: 102 paper, GRE writing

score

Capstone: 102 paper, GRE writing

score Table 2.9b. Initial Draft of Five Year Learning Goals and Assessment Plan: ABA Certificate

L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 Competence 171 pre-post; pass

rate for BCaBA exam

171 pre-post; pass rate for BCaBA

exam


exam


exam


exam Clinical Skills 191 oral

presentations; pass rate for BCaBA

exam

191 oral presentations; pass

rate for BCaBA exam

Critical Thinking 191 class debates; Exit survey

191 class debates; Exit survey

Ethical Reasoning 191 class debates; pass rate for

BCaBA exam

191 class debates; pass rate for

BCaBA exam


Table 2.9c. Initial Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: General Psychology MA L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Competence Core course signature

assignment from content courses

taught this semester

Core course signature











taught this semester Critical Thinking Capstone: thesis,

Exit survey Capstone: thesis,

Exit survey

Inquiry & Analysis Capstone: thesis, Exit survey

Capstone: thesis, Exit survey

Quantitative Literacy Capstone: thesis, 203 final exam, Exit

survey

Capstone: thesis, 203 final exam, Exit

survey


Capstone: thesis, 200 final paper, Exit

survey


survey Table 2.9d. Initial Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: I/O Psychology MA

L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 Competence Core course

signature assignment from content courses

taught this semester, Exit survey













Critical Thinking Capstone: thesis, Exit survey






survey


survey

Table 2.9e. Initial Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: ABA Psychology MA L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Competence 274 pre-post 281 pre-post 284 pre-post 274 pre-post 281 pre-post Critical Thinking Capstone: thesis;

Exit survey

Ethical Reasoning 291 class debates; Exit survey

Inquiry & Analysis Capstone: thesis; Exit survey

Problem Solving 291 class debates; Exit survey


Capstone: thesis; Exit survey

3. Focused Inquiry This section presents the results of a focused inquiry addressing issues of particular interest/concern to the program itself, in the context of what is currently important to the college and university. Since 2008, the department began to focus on curricular issues to address in large part the substantial number of psychology majors relative to the number of full-time faculty and course offerings. With the retirement of senior faculty, a tighter university budget, and greater demand for psychology courses, students were finding it increasingly difficult to register for courses in psychology and to graduate in a timely manner. Recommendations made by our 2006-07 program review with respect to curricular issues, namely, revising our course numbering system for both undergraduate and graduate courses, revisiting methods courses, and monitoring prerequisite course requirements were being considered for


implementation. However, it became clear that these and other curricular issues required a larger discussion about how well our curriculum functions in regard to content, structure, and efficiency, which are the issues addressed in our focused inquiry Recent Curricular Changes Although the department’s declaration of impaction in 2011 was both an acknowledgement of and an effort to address the substantial number of psychology majors, we made three slight, but significant changes to the curriculum prior to and after impaction to better serve our students. First, the department revisited its methods courses to provide more options for students to align these courses with their professional and career objectives. Specifically, we changed the previous PSYC 101 “Foundations of Statistics I” course from a 4-unit lecture and lab course to a 3-unit lecture course, and developed and implemented PSYC 121 “Methods and Statistics in Psychological Research”, a 3-unit activity-based course that incorporates statistical analysis using SPSS. This revision not only provided more options for students to take methods courses that better fit their needs, but also alleviated to a certain degree the “bottleneck” that was occurring with our methods courses. Second, the department monitored and adjusted when necessary the prerequisite course requirements for upper-division courses in the psychology major. The main objective for requiring prerequisite or corequisite courses was to ensure that undergraduate students were previously introduced to basic psychological principles and knowledge necessary to master materials in specific upper-division psychology courses. A faculty committee reviewed and evaluated current prerequisite and corequisite courses to determine their appropriateness as foundational classes to prepare for specific upper-division psychology courses and determine if the prerequisite and corequisite policy was being enforced. The official review of these prerequisite and corequisite courses was completed in Spring 2011, with recommendations being forwarded to the department. Dr. Endriga also consulted with Barbara Kelly, Enrollment System Analyst with the Office of the University Registrar, about the Common Management Systems (CMS) to prevent undergraduate students from electronically enrolling in upper-division psychology courses without the completion of required prerequisite or corequisite course(s). With upgrades to the University CMS, the capacity for such enforcement of the policy for required prerequisite and corequisite courses could now be implemented and this formal monitoring process was introduced in Spring 2013. This step has improved the chances of students with the appropriate prerequisite and corequisite courses to register for courses and has facilitated their progress through and completion of the major. Finally, since the last program review, the department instituted two different revisions to its catalog (2010 and 2012) to address curricular issues. These revisions were in response to the previous external reviewer recommending that the department revise its course numbering system for both undergraduate and graduate courses to provide more order and intuitiveness of course content assigned to a particular numerical range. Because it was necessary to fit curricular revisions into the preexisting course numbering system, we believe that the current numbering system can be revised to provide more intuitive grouping of courses based on content. The department’s current focused inquiry will likely result in further curricular changes, and after these have been formalized, we will perform the necessary “housekeeping” to provide more order to our course numbering system. These steps taken over the past several years have allowed the Department to address specific curricular issues. However, the current self-study provided an opportunity and occasion to further evaluate and reflect on how our programs and course offerings cover the current field of psychology. The field of psychology is a dynamic, rapidly evolving discipline. Along with the core coursework commonly found in the Psychology major, we strive to provide our students with opportunities to learn about specialized and contemporary topics. To ensure the department’s programs and course offerings cover the current field of psychology, we consulted four general sources: a) accrediting or other professional discipline-


related organizations, b) transfer-model curriculum, c) psychology curricula from other institutions, and d) graduate school requirements.

3.1. Course Offerings

How thoroughly do our department’s programs and course offerings cover the current field of psychology? What is the optimal structure and balance between core and more specialized course offerings? To what extent do our course offerings reflect this optimal structure and balance?

3.1.1. Curricular Comparison with Accrediting and Other Professional Organizations.

One set of sources includes accrediting or other professional discipline-related organizations such as the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB). In particular, we consulted APA’s Guidelines and Principles for Accreditation of Programs in Professional Psychology (APA, 2007) and APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major (APA, 2007), SIOP’s Guidelines for Education and Training at the Master’s Level in Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP, 1994), and the Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst (BCaBA) national certification exam. It is important to note that these materials are not strict standards, but rather serve as guidelines in creating a curriculum that reflects the expertise of our faculty, community interests, and core and specialized areas of psychology. A gleaning of these guidelines covering various sub-disciplines highlights several common areas that focus on understanding and competence in: a) the breadth of scientific psychology, its history, its research methods, and its applications (e.g., biological, cognitive, history and systems, measurement, methodology, data analysis); b) the scientific, methodological, and theoretical foundations of practice in substantive areas of a program (e.g., individual differences, human development, abnormal/dysfunctional behavior, professional standards and ethics); c) diagnosing or defining problems through assessment/measurement and formulating and implementing intervention strategies (e.g., assessment/diagnosis, effective intervention, supervision); d) issues of cultural and individual diversity, and; e) attitudes important for lifelong learning, scholarly inquiry, and problem solving in relation to scientific and professional knowledge. These areas follow quite closely our current categories and courses, though area “c” is less represented in our curriculum. In part, “c” is less represented because it tends to be under specialty areas such as Counseling, and more emphasized at the graduate level. These guidelines furthermore are used to align specific learning outcomes identified in Part 2, above, with our program and course offerings. In the case of Industrial/Organizational Psychology (I/O), for example, coverage of general psychology and I/O specific content (SIOP Areas I & III) gives students the foundation for understanding the relevant psychological literature and identifying relevant research problems; our solid coverage of research methods and statistics (SIOP Area II) provides them with the foundation for designing sound studies, analyzing data, and properly interpreting the results; our coverage of general psychology, I/O content, and research methods (SIOP Areas I, II, & III) gives them the foundation for writing informative research reports and communicating research findings. In specific cases such as the ABA program, the national certification exam and the Behavior Analysis Certification Board shape the types of courses offered. The ABA certificate program, for instance, is consistent with the learning outcomes set forth by the BACB and designed to give students the didactic training needed to sit for the national certification exam to become a Board Certified Assistant Behavior Analyst. In general, our programs and course offerings appear to reflect the guidelines used by accrediting or other professional-related organizations in psychology.

3.1.2. Curricular Comparison with Similar Institution. We furthermore compared our Department with psychology departments at several top ranked universities nationwide. We compiled a list of ten schools based on the national rankings, western regional rankings, and public university


rankings. These rankings used the current U.S. News Best Colleges (2012) report based on 16 indicators of academic excellence and the 1997 Gourman Report, which was the only undergraduate psychology program ranking available. In comparison with these 10 schools, our current division of categories (Biopsychology, Individual/Social, Cognitive/Learning, Developmental and Human Diversity) appears congruent with many well-respected U.S. universities. Several universities have further collapsed these categories into two cores, e.g., Biopsychology, Cognition, and Learning have been grouped together into a single core due to the conceptual links among these categories. This approach allows students more flexibility in choosing upper division classes that meet their own interests, while satisfying degree requirements. Approximately half of the schools that we reviewed use this core-based approach with fewer, broader categories. The number of classes required for a Bachelor of Arts Degree in psychology ranged from 7-20 classes within psychology, with a mean of 14, which is very close to our own requirement of 16 classes. Further evaluation of the structure of the requirements indicated that upper division classes comprised 71-92% of the required classes. Of note, higher percentages were associated with a curriculum structure that included statistics classes in upper division coursework, whereas the lower percentages were associated with a curriculum structure that included statistics courses as part of lower division coursework. Among these ten universities, lower level coursework commonly included: Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods, and Statistics; this approach is similar to our own structure. Overall, our division and number of categories appear to be similar to those used by many other well-respected universities in the U.S.

3.1.3. Curricular Comparison to Psychology Graduate School Requirements. In reviewing program and course offerings, another source included peer-reviewed articles in psychology that examined which undergraduate psychology courses might be required/preferred for graduate programs in psychology. We reviewed two specific articles (Lawson, Reisinger, & Jordan-Fleming, 2012; Norcross, Hanych, & Terranova, 1996) that showed similar results of the percentage of graduate programs indicating a preference for incoming graduate students to have completed specific undergraduate courses in psychology. The article by Lawson et al. (2012) shows the following: Statistics (92%), Research (74%), Abnormal (41%), Developmental (35%), Personality (29.7%), Biopsychology (22%), Learning (19%), Social (18%), Testing (17%), Cognitive (15%), History (8%), and Sensation/Perception (6%).

The percentage of graduate programs that required specific undergraduate psychology courses are: Statistics (85%), Research methods/experimental design (66%), Childhood/Developmental (36%), Abnormal/Psychopathology (33%), Learning (28%), Personality (28%), Biopsychology/Physiological (24%), Social (23%), Lab course (12%), Testing & measurement (18%), History & Systems (17%), Cognitive (13%), and Sensation/Perception (11%) (Lawson et al., 2012). Our current requirements for the Bachelor of Arts Degree in psychology fit well with these reported course prerequisites or required/preferred undergraduate courses in psychology for most graduate programs in psychology. However, it is important to note the highly variable nature of preferred/required courses; only statistics and research/research methods consistently received high endorsement (Statistics: 85%-92%; Research: 66%-74%) as preferred or required undergraduate courses by most graduate psychology programs. In the two studies cited above, there was a steep drop-off in the level of endorsement for specific undergraduate courses other than Statistics and Research. There are also two categories in our current major which received little specific endorsement as priorities for undergraduate preparation for graduate school: Human Diversity including the required Cross-Cultural Psychology course and the Capstone category requirements. Although these areas in psychology are highly valued in our own psychology


major, these received little mention in the above two studies on required/preferred undergraduate psychology courses for masters and doctoral programs in psychology. Thus, the current requirements of the psychology major cover the breadth that is preferred in undergraduate coursework as reported in these two studies on graduate programs in psychology. However, it is important to note that most undergraduate students in the psychology major will not embark on a career path involving graduate training. With this in mind, it is crucial to determine the multiple goals that our psychology major is trying to accomplish, for both students who may end their college education with a terminal Bachelor of Arts Degree in psychology and those who may go on and use this undergraduate degree as a stepping stone for graduate studies in psychology.

3.1.4. Curricular Alignment with the Transfer Model Curriculum for Psychology. In 2010, implementation of SB 1440 established Associate Arts and Associate Science degrees for Transfer (AA-T and AS-T). In Spring 2011, Resolution 9.07 urged the adoption of Transfer Model Curricula (TMCs). The Psychology TMC was finalized in January 2011 and updated in December 2012. It consists of 18-24 (lower division) units comprised of six courses: three core courses (Introductory Statistics, Introductory Psychology and Research Methods), an Introductory Biology or Biological Psychology course (TMC “List A”), and two additional courses that would articulate to a CSU Psychology major (TMC “List B” and “List C”). When comparing the TMC with our lower division courses, it is clear that our alignment is quite minimal. Currently, our major consists of 3 lower division courses (7 units), with two courses—Introductory Psychology (PSYC 2) and Research Methods (PSYC 8) aligning with the TMC. Our third lower division course, Navigating Psychology (PSYC 4), is specific to our department and functions as a group advising class. Thus, only 2 of the 6 TMC courses are in alignment. In our advising experience, the majority of our incoming majors are transfer students who have typically taken several additional lower division psychology courses at their community colleges beyond the two that we routinely accept toward the major.

3.1.5. Analysis and Recommendations. In evaluating how thoroughly our programs and course offerings cover the current field of psychology, it appears that our curriculum is comparable to other well-respected U.S. universities. We utilize one of two primary models for organizing course requirements: the narrow-category system, that has students choose one to two courses from each of several, more narrowly-defined categories, in contrast to the broad-core system that has students choose a higher number of courses from each of a few (generally two), more broadly-defined core categories. The balance between our lower and upper divisions as well as required and elective courses falls within the range that exists for these institutions. Roughly 80% of our courses are upper division offerings (vs. 71% to 92% at other institutions) and our core and elective courses are representative of a wide range of subdisciplines in psychology. It should be noted that the curriculum and categories are also a reflection of the specialties of the faculty members in their specific doctoral training and research areas. Thus, the undergraduate major is a combination of general psychological areas, methodological skills, and specialized content. Unfortunately, budget cuts and a large psychology study body have limited specialized offerings to a curriculum that has been increasingly organized around major psychological content. For example, Cross-Cultural Psychology (PSYC 100), Statistics for Psychology (PSYC 101), Cognitive Psychology (PSYC 110), Introductory to Biological Psychology (PSYC 111), Social Psychology (PSYC 145), Abnormal Psychology (PSYC 168) may be considered more basic or foundational courses that have been consistently offered the past 12 years, while Animal Behavior (PSYC 116), Qualitative Research in Psychology (PSYC 122), Psychology of Adolescence (PSYC149), Psychological Aspects of Death and


Dying (PSYC 151), and Health Psychology (PSYC 152) may be considered more specialized courses given their course content and limited offerings. Although our course offerings reflect solid structure and balance, we could stand to simplify our basic curricular structure in several ways. One recommendation is for the department to revise and consolidate several course categories, e.g., Biological and Perception; Capstone; Individual and Social Processes, to make it easier for students to satisfy course offerings. Currently, we have seven categories that students must fulfill in addition to the two upper division required courses (PSYC 100 and PSYC 101) and electives. An added benefit of this consolidation would be that more elective courses may be offered by faculty as they would have more flexibility to teach outside of their normal course category obligations. A second recommendation is to develop a lower division course for several categories. For example, we could develop an Introduction to Biology course as a prerequisite for Biopsychology to better prepare students. Similarly, the department could migrate an upper division course such as PSYC 101 to a lower division course. In both cases, these changes would better prepare students for upper division courses and improve their ability to move through the major curriculum more efficiently and graduate in a timely manner. Furthermore, these changes would address challenges presented by the TMC and facilitate better transition for many of our students, a large percentage of whom have transferred from community colleges that have already adopted this model. A third related recommendation includes greater alignment with the TMC and a shift toward more lower division courses. This could be accomplished in a few different ways:

• Allow existing lower division GE courses that align with the TMC to count towards the Psychology major. Current university policy allows 9 units of overlap between GE and the major and, currently, only 6 units of overlap are possible. GE courses that appear to be aligned with the TMC are:

o Introductory Statistics which is available as a GE requirement for Area B4 (Mathematical Concepts and Quantitative Reasoning), with STAT 1 (Introduction to Statistics) and STAT 50 (Introduction to Probability and Statistics) as the courses most closely resembling the TMC requirement. More preferable would be for students to fulfill this requirement with a psychology statistics course. Since no such course is currently available, the department may consider migrating PSYC 101 to lower division and substituting the newer PSYC 121 course in its place as required of all majors.

o Human biology (TMC List A) which is available as GE Area B2 (Life Forms) BIO 10 (Basic Biological Concepts) and BIO 20 (Biology: A Human Perspective). Alternatively, the department may consider migrating PSYC 111 to lower division for majors or GE.

o For TMC “List B” and “List C”, some CSUs have required a lifespan development course. Although the Psychology major has no such course, GE Area E (Understanding Personal Development) includes CHDV 30 (Human Development). Alternatively, the department may consider developing a new lifespan development course for majors or GE.

• Convert some of our upper division GE and non-GE courses to lower division in order to allow these courses to count under the TMC Lists B and C. For example, our GE Area E course PSYC 137 Stress Management may work as a lower division course.

• Create additional lower division courses for the major and/or GE. We are currently discussing development of a lower division GE course in behavior management, which would introduce students to the field of applied behavior analysis and possibly also work for TMC List B or C.


3.2. Learning Goals and Career Preparation How well does the structure and content of the curriculum map onto our current learning goals? How well do the learning goals prepare our students for various career paths?

3.2.1. Essential Learning Goals. In keeping with the departmental and University missions

and with current directions within higher education, the department has identified learning goals, including skills development and content mastery, for our students and implemented assessment strategies to evaluate our success in accomplishing those goals. Focusing on skills will help our students to meet the demands of the workplace or advanced study programs. While the previous question examined the structure and content of the psychology major curriculum, the question being considered here evaluates how this structure and content meets the department’s stated learning goals and how these goals prepare our students for successful futures. As described in Section II, the department’s stated learning goals are grounded in the university’s mission and its baccalaureate learning goals as well as the department’s mission and student learning goals. Through this dynamic process that also involves consultation with accrediting and other professional discipline-related organizations such as the APA and its guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major, the department has arrived at a set of “essential learning goals” for psychology majors. These include competence in the discipline of psychology in the following areas:

• Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world through study in psychological science.

• Intellectual and practical skills, including: inquiry and analysis, critical, philosophical, and creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative literacy, information literacy, teamwork, and problem solving, practiced extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards of performance.

• Personal and social responsibility, including: civic knowledge and engagement—local and global, intercultural knowledge and competence, ethical reasoning and action, foundations and skills for lifelong learning anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges.


Through curriculum mapping, these “Essential Learning Goals” are aligned with “Measurable Program Learning Objectives,” four of which have been unanimously selected by the department to be implemented on a rolling basis over the next five years (2013-2018). These include: mastery of discipline-specific knowledge, development of critical thinking skills, development of inquiry and analysis skills, and development of written communication skills. To assess how the current structure and content of the psychology major’s curriculum aligns with these learning goals and how these goals prepare students for various career paths, we examined data from the Alumni Center Survey (ACS) as well as data from the Alumni Qualitative Survey (AQS). The ACS was developed and administered by the Alumni Center to a wide swath of recent graduates to better assess how the structure and content of the curriculum map onto our current learning goals, whereas the AQS was department-generated and focused on select graduates to evaluate how well the learning goals prepare our students for various career paths.

3.2.2. Alumni Feedback. 2012 Alumni Center Survey (2012 ACS). In the 2012 ACS, students who successfully completed a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Psychology were asked, “To what extent did your major help you develop the following types of knowledge and proficiencies?” with respect to 15 learning goals (see Table 3.2.2a). Alumni were asked to respond by choosing one of four categories: “Considerably,” “Sufficiently,” “Somewhat,” or “Very Little;” these were subsequently collapsed into two categories, “Successfully Prepared” and “Underprepared” in order to streamline the reporting of survey results. The survey targeted alumni who received their Bachelor’s and/or Master’s


Degree from CSUS in Psychology between 2007 and 2011, with more than 50% graduating between 2010 and 2011. Two hundred forty-five alumni responded to this survey, a large majority (80%) of whom were undergraduate students. The current positions of the alumni who responded to the survey included students in graduate school (~30%); employees in the private/not-for-profit sectors (combined ~40%); and employees in the public sector (local, state, or federal; 22%).

Bearing in mind the learning goals (e.g., critical thinking, inquiry and analysis, and written communication) that our undergraduate curriculum currently focuses on, the data suggest that the existing structure of the psychology major successfully prepares our students. The overwhelming majority of former students felt they developed competencies in critical thinking skills and information literacy and research skills (94% reported “successfully prepared”). Also ranked among the highest acquired skills as a psychology major were the ability to apply knowledge, integrative learning, ethical reasoning and action, and understanding and using quantitative information. Areas of learning goals that were not prioritized by the department tended to be rated lower by the students in preparation. For example, creative thinking, which was not a focus and would perhaps be a more important learning goal in a creative arts curriculum, for example, was ranked among the lowest that students felt they were successfully prepared for. Given our resources as a department, we found that it was important to prioritize a subset of learning goals that were the most vital for curriculum in our specific discipline; thus, our curricular emphasis with respect to specific goals varied. In the overall pattern of results, it appears that the distribution of student responses maps onto the priorities of the department. Table 3.2.2a. To what extent did your major help you develop the following types of knowledge and proficiencies?

Learning Goal Successfully Prepared

Under Prepared

Total Alumni Responded

1. Critical thinking* 94% 6% 239

2. Information literacy and research skills* 93% 7% 238

3.

The ability to apply your knowledge to new situations or

problems

88% 12% 203

4. Integrative learning 88% 12% 235

5. Ethical reasoning and action 87% 13% 239

6. Understanding and using quantitative

information** 86% 14% 239

7. Problem-solving 85% 15% 238

8. Intercultural

Knowledge and competence

85% 15% 234

9. Effective writing* 84% 16% 237

10. Foundations and skills for lifelong

learning 82% 18% 234


11. Creative thinking 71% 29% 235

12. Effective oral communication 69% 31% 237

13. Teamwork 67% 33% 239

14. Careful Reading 67% 33% 238

15. Civic knowledge and engagement 66% 34% 238

*Consistent with areas of focus for the 2013-2018 Assessment Plan; **For graduate level only. Alumni Qualitative Survey (AQS) The Alumni Qualitative Survey was developed by the department and distributed to a smaller set of recent graduates (n = 22; 60% return rate) to gather more in-depth responses about their experiences prior to and after graduation. This survey targeted alumni who received their Bachelor’s Degree from CSUS in Psychology between 2007 and 2012. Of the twenty-two respondents, 45% reported that they are currently in graduate school, 20% are employees in the public sector, 10% are employees in the private/ not-for-profit, 15% are attending graduate school and working, and 10% are applying for graduate school. With respect to curriculum structure and career preparation, respondents were asked “What aspects of the major were most and least valuable or useful?” and “How has the psychology major prepared you in the following areas?” (noting the four departmental learning goals: mastery of discipline-specific knowledge, development of critical thinking skills, development of inquiry and analysis skills, and development of written communication skills). When relevant, recent graduates responded to, “How did the Psychology major prepare you for” work or advanced study? Points of emphasis for graduates naturally depended to some extent on the path they took after graduation. For example, former students moving on to graduate school or working for organizations that involved data collection/analysis tended to appreciate methods courses, those in counseling graduate programs tended to appreciate diversity courses, and those working or studying in the ABA field appreciated ABA courses. Still, some general themes can be drawn from an analysis of the qualitative responses that shed greater light on how our department’s learning goals prepare students for their career paths.

Curriculum Structure. Overall, all 22 respondents found the curriculum structure useful. They appreciated how exposure to different areas of psychology provided a comprehensive overview of the field and a solid foundation of their understanding of mind and human behavior. A former student (G.G.) stated:

For me, all these classes work well in establishing a strong foundation not only for understanding human behavior but also for understanding the reasons and differences in human behavior and why certain behavior is viewed differently depending on any number of factors.

While recent graduates noted the comprehensive nature of the curriculum structure, they also highlighted specific areas of strengths. Twelve of the recent graduates reported that methods courses (e.g., PSYC 101, PSYC 102, and PSYC 122) were useful in training them to understand the world from a social scientific perspective. These courses prepared former students from the “nuts and bolts” of conducting research in a variety of settings, including graduate studies and work settings, as well as conducting program evaluation in community settings. For example, the following statements from former students highlight the impact these methods courses had on their subsequent paths post-graduation:

S.D.: I would say that the breadth of methods and statistics courses provided in the undergraduate program was also a key component in preparing me for graduate school. In fact, I am trying to implement similar undergraduate requirements here at my current institution.


S.R.: This course (Psyc 122) taught me valuable aspects of the IRB, thus when applying for my current position I was able to express that I was familiar with the rules and expectations of working on research projects with human subjects. In addition, a very valuable skill taught was interview skill and preparation to be sensitive to different cultures and issues one might be presented with while conducting an interview. Also the exposure to grounded theory created a new method of thinking for me which in my opinion has greatly improved my problem solving skills. N.S.: Methods courses taught me how to construct program evaluations, something that is very important in the world of non-profit mental health work.

Eight of the former students indicated that applied research/field courses (e.g., PSYC 194, PSYC 195) were helpful in providing more individualized training and deeper, more applied experiences with material they had learned in other courses. As illustrated in the excerpts below, these courses not only provided them with opportunities to conduct research and present their findings in professional settings, but also prepared them for future careers in psychology and related areas.

H.M.C.: …the involvement in cooperative research has really shown me what psychology is. It was a valuable experience that I got to learn new research techniques as well as the application of theories that I’ve learned in class. Most importantly, it provided me with numerous great opportunities to present research findings at various prestigious psychological conferences across the nation. It took my undergraduate study onto a new level. V.T.: I was lucky enough to be one of the few students in the psych program at CSUS that got to participate in research…If it were not for that opportunity, I would definitely not be in the program I am in today. The work I did in that lab and the guidance that [Professor] has provided was essential to getting me into various PhD programs.

As the excerpts above show, these applied research/field courses are tremendous opportunities for growth of specific skills for undergraduate students. However, given the severe imbalance between faculty to undergraduate majors (roughly 1:90), these opportunities are limited. This is unfortunate in light of the general nature of the lower division courses, but the need and desire for more specialized courses from undergraduate students. As one student (G.G.) expressed:

As for items I feel to be of less value, I’d have to say that for students who truly plan to major in psychology, many of the lower division classes may feel somewhat general and limited. While I understand this is often the point of lower division and intro level classes for me these classes did not give enough information and only seemed to gloss over general concepts. Many students may find such courses to be a bit tedious and un-engaging.

As some former students have shared, there is a desire for more in-depth understanding and training of psychology as undergraduates. While the general nature of lower division courses is simply a function of introductory courses, the department finds it challenging to provide more in-depth, specialized courses under the current budget constraints.

Learning Goals and Preparation for Work/Advanced Study. For the most part, respondents praised the skills they acquired with respect to the learning goals identified above. As one student (S.D.) noted, “All of the following aspects [learning goals] are incredibly important for my current job as a professor. I would have never received the position that I have now without the fundamental training in each of these areas that I received as an undergraduate.” Although the career path this former student undertook might be an exception, it still highlights the strategic planning the department has adopted to match learning goals and courses. As others have shared, classes “covered a wide range of psychological topics (biological, multicultural, developmental, etc.), provided a strong base in Psychology” (J.L.), and “provided a breadth of knowledge, and when you wanted depth you could seek out professors and take


extra classes” (L.D.). In addition to the mastery of discipline-specific knowledge, former students also indicated that they developed critical thinking skills and inquiry and analysis skills relevant for their future work or advanced study.

D.M.: The development of critical thinking skills has assisted me in becoming an effective critical thinker and critical writer. The many papers and labs in my undergraduate major of psychology taught me how to write papers in APA and more importantly how to critically think, critically analyze, and then to communicate my analysis through a scientific paper. V.T.: Psych 8, 101, and 102 were excellent course for development of analysis skills. Most psych programs do not require that many method/stats courses, but I feel that CSUS’s program is putting the students at an advantage by requiring more. I also felt the environment from most of my professors’ courses was such that I always felt comfortable asking questions and analyzing information, and thus I feel my courses really fostered development of inquiry skills.

All 20 former students commented on the development of their written communication skills, citing intensive writing opportunities in the first lower division course, PSYC 8, and continuing on through PSYC 101 to one of the capstone courses, PSYC 194. Three respondents commented that they wished there were more opportunities to develop their written communication in coursework. Still, although specific classes are designed to develop certain learning goals, the department does attempt to develop these skills across a number of courses and emphasize them in our capstone courses such as PSYC 194, Cooperative Research.

J.L.: Similar to the development of critical thinking skills, the papers and projects I was assigned in my classes helped to develop my written communication skills. My research experience did also. I was able to prepare presentations for professional conferences as well as assist in writing a book chapter.

These responses seem to suggest that our current learning goals prepare the students well for the career paths that they eventually undertake.

3.2.3. Analysis and Recommendations. Overall, data from the ACS and AQS suggest that the curriculum structure and content map onto our current learning goals and that these learning goals prepare our students for various career paths. These data demonstrate that former students acquire the learning skills emphasized in our curriculum and that graduates demonstrate a high level of preparedness for post-graduate careers and plans. Responses to specific items in the ACS clearly show that the vast majority of recent graduates with the psychology major felt properly trained in discipline-specific skills and the methods/practices of psychology to be successful in their chosen profession post-graduation. Nearly 83% of the recent graduates reported the curriculum had trained them in discipline-specific skills to be successful in their future careers and nearly 88% of the recent graduates reported the curriculum provided strong training in the methods/practices of the profession. With regard to the general level of preparedness for career pathways post-graduation, almost 60% of the recent graduates in the psychology major reported being satisfied with their level of preparation to succeed in the world after college. Qualitative analysis from the AQS reveals how specific curriculum content and coursework provided more support for specific career pathways. Some recommendations include more specialized upper division courses that may be offered as electives, potential lower division courses that may be incorporated into the TMC, and more opportunities for methods courses and specialized courses that provide more in-depth experiences for undergraduate majors. Indeed, there was some indication that students wished for more sustained opportunities in these skills and practices over a wider range of courses. To better assess how to sustain and increase these opportunities, we plan to analyze data from our current assessment attempts (2013-2018) that identify


roadmaps of specific courses with specific learning goals. We must also seek further support for more specialized courses to address student needs for in-depth experiences in psychology. Still, these sources of data reflect an overall positive assessment of the psychology major for post-graduate career preparation.

3.3. Curriculum Efficiency Are students able to move through the Psychology curriculum efficiently with the opportunity to graduate in a timely manner? Our department finds itself in the midst of unprecedented challenges, including increased demand for the major, our heavily impacted status (we have been operating at 125% of our capacity), significant attrition of full-time tenure-track faculty due to retirements, and significant decreases in our part-time faculty and operating expense budgets. We recognize that curriculum revision is an important process that can be used to partially offset the impact of these challenges on the quality of education for our students and timely completion of their degrees. In this context, we are examining ways to revise our curriculum in order to achieve our learning goals with greater efficiency. This third objective for our focused inquiry turns to curriculum revision as one approach to successful enrollment management at the departmental level and to increase graduation rates consistent with the University’s Graduation Initiative. As a department, we do not have control over faculty hiring or instructional budgets; however, we do have relatively more control over the structure, sequence, and unit requirements of our curriculum. Potential benefits of curriculum revision are that it may:

• Address system problems without additional external resources • Reduce instructional costs • Ease faculty workload • Reduce course bottlenecks • Update and streamline course offerings • Facilitate progress to degree

The Psychology Student Profile table in Section 1.3, above, provides Factbook statistics on retention rates and median years to degree for undergraduate students, which are similar to or better than the College and University figures. In contrast to our undergraduate students, our graduate program median years to degree is higher than the College or University numbers, which reflects the number of part-time students in our graduate programs, as well as the 60-unit Counseling Psychology option. Section 1.1.5, above, presents data on program impaction in our undergraduate major, which is a main obstacle to students graduating in a timely fashion and moving smoothly through our major curriculum. Section 1.2, above, describes the current state of our full-time and part-time hiring and faculty workload which plays an important role in the efficiency of our curriculum delivery.

3.3.1. Steps already taken to improve efficiency (see sections 1.7.2.1 and 1.7.2.2, above). Since our last program review, we have taken several steps to improve the efficiency with which we move our majors through the curriculum:

1. Reducing majors through impaction 2. Addressing primary curriculum bottlenecks: PSYC 1, PSYC 5, PSYC 101 3. Increasing class sizes, class sections, seats 4. Increasing FT and PT faculty 5. Improving advising, especially at the beginning of the major

Beyond responding to the previous program review, in 2011/2012 we created curriculum roadmaps for native freshmen and transfer students, which have been posted on our website. While these roadmaps


have been useful as a general advising tool, they have had limited use under our current impaction conditions as a means of moving students more efficiently through the curriculum primarily because students must often take any course opening that they can find, regardless of whether it fits ideal course sequencing as laid out in the roadmaps.

3.3.2. Tracking demand for major courses. The current structure of the major requires a minimum of 46 units. This translates into 16 courses: 3 lower division (total 7 units), 2 required upper division courses (total 6 units), 9 upper division courses from 7 different categories (27-31 units) and 2 electives (6+ units). While it is a fairly straightforward process to plan for sufficient sections of the 5 required courses (PSYC 2, 4, 8, 100, 101), it is a greater challenge to ensure that majors have access to multiple options within each of the 7 categories and electives. One perspective on curriculum efficiency is to look cross-sectionally at unmet demand for major courses. To this end, a series of Cognos reports were run tracking unmet demand for selected upper division major courses and course categories for seniors for the Fall 2012 semester. Table 3.3.2a. Senior unmet demand for non-elective major courses and course categories, Fall 2012 (N=717) Course or Category

# Seniors needing requirement

Demand (%)

PSYC 100

88 12%

PSYC 101

162 23%

Upper division methods (1 course)

363 51%

Biological Processes (1 course)

222 31%

Cognitive Processes (2 courses)

228 (456 seats) 32%

Developmental Processes (1 course)

204 28%

Individual/Social Processes (2 courses)

93 (186 seats) 13%

Human Diversity (1 course)

119 32%

Capstone (1 course)

309 43%

According to this data, the total number of seats needed to fill the unmet senior demand for required upper division, non-elective major courses is 2,109. Given that our average class size for upper division courses is 53, it would take an additional 40 sections to meet this demand. This data does not include unmet demand from juniors which we expect to be nearly as high. The highest demand appears to be for our upper division methods category. This category has four course options (PSYC 102, 120, 122 & 181) and only one of these (PSYC 120) can be offered as a mega-section (120 cap). The demand for the Capstone category (PSYC 107, 190 and 194) is also high. Only PSYC 190 can be offered as a mega-section and PSYC 194 is a supervisory course. On a positive note, PSYC 101 used to be our most problematic bottleneck course but appears to have stabilized somewhat as a result of increasing the class size and removing the attached lab.


Another strategy that we implemented to examine the efficiency of our curriculum was longitudinal. Specifically, we randomly sampled 10 transcripts from undergraduate students who had petitioned to graduate in Spring 2013. Based on this sample, we determined the mean number of semesters it took to complete the major and assessed if students’ progression through courses was in line with our intended curriculum sequence. Specifically, for these 10 students, we evaluated when they took: 1) an introduction to the major course, PSYC 4; 2) the required statistical course, PSYC 101; and 3) the capstone category course (CAP): PSYC 107, PSYC 190 or PSYC 194. The results are in Table 3.3.2.b. below. The mean time to complete psychology major requirements for graduation was 5.7 semesters (SD = 1.6). This time was measured as the number of semesters completed from their first psychology course at Sacramento State until their expected graduation date. With regard to the progression of courses, the beige background in the tables below represents the semesters that students were enrolled at Sacramento State from matriculation through graduation. In 2010, a course was added to our curriculum to help students navigate the major and career paths in psychology and related fields (PSYC 4). It is intended that this course will be taken by students within the first 2 semesters as a psychology major. Three out of the 10 graduating students are using catalog rights before this was implemented and, therefore, were not required to take PSYC 4. For the remaining 7 students, all but 1 student completed this course by their second semester. Table 3.3.2b. Trajectory of semester Psyc 4, 101 and Capstone was taken during enrollment at Sacramento State.

Year 1 Fall

Year 1 Spring

Year 2 Fall

Year 2 Spring

Year 3 Fall

Year 3 Spring

Year 4 Fall

Year 4 Spring

Year 5 Fall

Year 5 Spring

101 4 CAP 4 101 CAP

101, CAP

4 101 CAP 4, 101 CAP 4 101 CAP 101 4 CAP

4 101, CAP

101 CAP CAP CAP 101 * Beige shading represents the semesters students were enrolled at Sacramento State through graduation. The required statistical course in Psychology (PSYC 101) should be taken before most upper division courses. It is intended that this course will be taken by students during their third semester as a Psychology major. As seen above, 7 out of 10 students completed this course by the end of their third semester as a student. The remaining 3 students enrolled in it between their fourth and seventh semesters. This delay in completion may be due to class availability since this course has been a “bottleneck” course since early 2000. As noted above, this bottleneck was recently addressed within the department by restructuring the methods courses. Finally, the capstone requirement is intended to be completed at the end of the curriculum sequence to provide an opportunity to consolidate and integrate skills such as critical thinking with mastery of discipline-specific knowledge. Seven out of 10 students completed their capstone requirement in either their last semester or second to last semester prior to graduation. Two of the 3 remaining students completed it in their third to last semester. While these data suggest the majority of students are taking


the capstone course toward the end of their curriculum sequence, it may be helpful to enforce adherence to requirements. One student completed the capstone during the first semester as a psychology major, which is not the intention of the curriculum.

3.3.3. Implications of Focused Inquiry Sections 3.1 and 3.2 for curriculum efficiency. Sections 3.1 and 3.2 of the focused inquiry addressed our curriculum as it pertains to structure and learning goals, some of which also have bearing on the question of efficiency. Curriculum Structure Review of various curriculum structures for top ranked psychology programs showed that our multiple category structure was common. Also common was the two category core approach with an increased number of electives. Moving to this structure, or something similar, would likely increase efficiency because it would simplify students’ scheduling needs and allow for more flexibility in meeting major requirements. This would be especially helpful under conditions of impaction where students repeatedly try to get into required courses and end up taking extra semesters to complete the major. However, simplifying the structure of the major would likely sacrifice some breadth across the many subdisciplines within the umbrella of psychology, which may affect students’ competitiveness for graduate school and employment opportunities. Curriculum Content Two areas of our curriculum were less well-represented in our examination of curriculum content of top ranked psychology programs as well as requisite courses for doctoral programs in psychology: Human Diversity and capstone. These courses include, for example, Cross-Cultural Psychology (PSYC 100), Psychology of Multicultural Groups (PSYC 135), and Cooperative Research (PSYC 194). We consider these curriculum areas to be progressive and essential for student learning, which is supported by qualitative student data (AQS); for example, diversity offerings were considered essential for mental health jobs and Cooperative Research is necessary for graduate school admissions. Therefore, although revision of these requirements may streamline the curriculum and should receive further discussion at the department level, eliminating these requirements would likely have negative consequences for student learning and post-baccalaureate opportunities. Transfer Model Curriculum Increasing the major’s alignment with the Transfer Model Curriculum (TMC) has the potential to increase curriculum efficiency as long as the total units for the major do not substantially increase. This is because the majority of majors are transfer students who would complete lower division major requirements at their community colleges, thereby reducing the demand for these courses in our department. Full alignment with the TMC for Psychology would mean that 18-24 units of the major would be designated as articulated lower division units, which would be nearly half of the total units for the major. This scenario is unlikely because it would leave only approximately 8 classes (24 units) to cover the upper division portion of the major. However, even revising the major by shifting two requirements to lower division courses (e.g., Intro Stats and Intro Biological Psychology) would allow transfer students, who make up the majority of psychology majors, to complete the major in ½ to 1 semester less.

Other approaches to increasing curriculum efficiency

Faculty. We recognize that requesting additional tenure track faculty lines and part-time faculty sections as a solution for impaction and curriculum efficiency is ubiquitous throughout the University. However, we see this solution, not as a panacea, but as only one of several strategies to manage impaction and meet the objectives of the Graduation Initiative.

Staff. Efficiency of moving students through the curriculum in a timely manner would be

improved with the addition of a staff member, specifically a Student Services Professional (SSP) who


would assist students with planning their course schedules and monitoring their progress toward graduation. This staff member would assist the Chair and Vice Chair by generating Cognos (SacVault) reports to track course demand and identify potential bottlenecks. The SSP would also be responsible for implementing all phases of the impaction process, including processing of the required Supplemental Application. Currently, our office is significantly understaffed, with only two staff members (ASC-I and ASC-II) who support nearly 40 faculty members and over 1600 students.

Information/data needs. Currently, we do not have an effective system for tracking students’

progress through the major. Semester course schedules are determined largely by attempts to represent all required aspects of the major. We could better plan our semester offerings with data on the demand for specific categories and required courses within our curriculum. Specifically, Cognos reports could be built that would allow for close monitoring of students’ progress through the major. Currently, in order to acquire this information, several separate reports need to be run and then manipulated in Excel. Even this process requires tedious and time-consuming hand counts to determine which students need specific course and category requirements. If accurate and easily updated reports were available, then course scheduling could be more strategic and targeted for the needs of specific cohorts of students.

3.4. Focused Inquiry Analysis and Recommendations In this focused inquiry, findings indicate that our curriculum structure and content are consistent with the professional standards of our field and with nationally top-ranked psychology programs. Moreover, in the areas of diversity and capstone, we are progressive and exceed standards. There appears to be no convincing evidence to suggest that the primary structure and content of the curriculum should be changed. However, our analysis suggests the following recommendations for future discussion and potential action by the department:

• Reduce the number of required categories and increase the number of options per category. • Increase elective units to allow more flexibility in completing major requirements. • Move (and redesign) at least two upper division courses to lower division consistent with the

Transfer Model Curriculum, specifically PSYC 111 (Bio Psych) and PSYC 101 (Statistics), thereby reducing the number of upper division courses that are required for transfer students to complete the major.

Since 2011, we have taken several steps to improve the efficiency of our curriculum delivery and facilitate progress of our majors to graduation. Review of recent demand statistics shows a reduction in bottlenecks for specific courses, although excess demand is not equally spread across required areas of the curriculum. Our small longitudinal analysis of courses intended for completion early (PSYC 4), midway (PSYC 101), and late (Capstone) in the major suggests that most students are following the intended course sequence. Some of our enrollment management strategies have been unpopular, but necessary nevertheless, i.e., impaction, deletion of labs from our required statistics course (PSYC 101), and increased class sizes. Other changes that foster students learning and progress to graduation involve no tradeoffs, especially the hiring of new faculty. Most of these changes are still new enough that our ability to fully evaluate their impact is limited, but we will monitor these over time. Two recommendations that would enhance our ability to improve flow of students through the major are:

• Hire additional tenure-track and part-time faculty to reduce unmet demand for major courses. • Hire additional staff to assist with course scheduling, advising, impaction and generating and

analyzing enrollment reports. • Develop OIR and Cognos reports to track and pinpoint demand for each aspect of curricular

requirements in order to make course scheduling and advising more effective.


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Stoloff, M., McCarthy, M., Keller, L., Varfolomeeva, V., Lynch, J., Makara, K., & Smiley, W. (2010). The undergraduate psychology major: An examination of structure and sequence. Teaching of Psychology, 37, 1–12. doi:10.1080/009862809034262742010-02956-002

http://www.apa.org/ed/resources.html

http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/about/policies/guiding-principles.pdf

APPENDIX A

Psychology Department Assessment Plan: 2013 – 2018 Academic Years

Sacramento State University Mission Statement MissionStatement

California State University, Sacramento is an integral part of the community, committed to access, excellence and diversity.

California State University, Sacramento is dedicated to the life-altering potential of learning that balances a liberal arts education with depth of knowledge in a discipline. We are committed to providing an excellent education to all eligible applicants who aspire to expand their knowledge and prepare themselves for meaningful lives, careers, and service to their community.

Reflecting the metropolitan character of the area, California State University, Sacramento is a richly diverse community. As such, the University is committed to fostering in all its members a sense of inclusiveness, respect for human differences, and concern for others. In doing so, we strive to create a pluralistic community in which members participate collaboratively in all aspects of university life.

California State University, Sacramento is committed to teaching and learning as its primary responsibility. In both the academic and student support programs, success is measured in terms of student learning. In addition, the University recognizes the vital connections between pedagogy and learning, research activities and classroom instruction, and co-curricular involvement and civic responsibility. All students, regardless of their entering levels of preparation, are expected to complete their degree programs with the analytical skills necessary to understand the social, economic, political, cultural, and ecological complexities of an increasingly interconnected world.

Located in the capital of the nation's most populous and diverse state, California State University, Sacramento is dedicated to advancing the many social, economic, political, and scientific issues affecting

Key Assignments

Catalog and/or Courses

Program Rubrics: Explicit Criteria

Measurable Program Learning Objectives

Essential Learning Goals

Psychology Department Mission

Baccelaurate Learning Goals

University Mission

Psychology Self Study Appendix A, Page 2

the region and the state. The University's curricular and co-curricular programs continue to focus on these issues through undergraduate and post-baccalaureate programs that prepare graduates for successful careers dedicated to public service and the enhancement of the quality of life within the region and the state. Our research centers and much of our individual scholarly efforts also remain directed at the enhancement of the quality of life within the region and the state.

At California State University, Sacramento, we are constantly striving to create a sense of unity among faculty, staff, administrators, students, alumni, and community members. In pursuing the combined elements of our mission, we seek to foster a sense of pride in all who view this campus as their own – pride in Sacramento State as the institution of choice among our current students; pride among our alumni in the ongoing impact of the Sacramento State education upon their lives; pride among faculty, staff, and administration in their university's achievement of excellence in teaching, learning, and scholarship; and pride in Sacramento State as an asset to the community among residents of the Greater Sacramento region.

Approved on March 29, 2004


Baccalaureate Learning Goals

Psychology Department Mission Statement

• To educate, research, and practice in the field of Psychology with dedication and enthusiasm. • We facilitate students’ intellectual and personal growth. • We prepare students for graduate studies, the workforce, managing citizenship responsibilities

and life demands. • We advance the many areas of our discipline through active and creative scholarship. • We serve diverse communities through meaningful collaborations with people and organizations. • Through teaching, scholarship, and service we promote human equity, health and well-being,

effective functioning, and respect for diversity.

Essential Learning Goals • Competence in the discipline of Psychology. • Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world through study in Psychological

science. • Intellectual and practical skills, including: inquiry and analysis, critical, philosophical, and

creative thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative literacy, information literacy, teamwork, and problem solving, practiced extensively across the curriculum, in the context of progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards of performance.


• Personal and social responsibility, including: civic knowledge and engagement-- local and global, intercultural knowledge and competence, ethical reasoning and action, foundations and skills for lifelong learning anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges.


Measurable Program Learning Objectives From the description above, we have selected four learning objectives for the undergraduate major (Competence in the Discipline, Critical Thinking, Inquiry & Analysis, Written Communication), four learning objectives for the ABA certificate (Competence in the Discipline, Clinical Skills, Critical Thinking, Ethical Reasoning), five learning objectives for the general MA program (Competence in the Discipline, Critical Thinking, Inquiry & Analysis, Quantitative Literacy, Written Communication), one learning objective for the I/O MA program (reflecting 21 competencies determined by the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, the program’s accrediting agency), and six learning objectives for the ABA MA program (Competence in the Discipline, Critical Thinking, Ethical Reasoning, Inquiry & Analysis, Problem Solving, Written Communication) to assess for the next self-study cycle. Among the learning outcomes that we have chosen to assess for the 2013-2018 cycle, three overlap with the University’s priorities for the next review cycle: Critical Thinking, Quantitative Literacy, and Written Communication. The remaining two learning outcomes prioritized by the University (Information Literacy and Oral Communication) will be considered for our program’s next review cycle. Program Rubrics The Psychology Department has revised the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics to incorporate language that is appropriate for the discipline of Psychology. We have adopted the rubrics (see Psychology_VALUE_Rubrics_Final.docx) for use in assignment-, course-, and program-level assessment. Catalog and/or Courses The learning outcomes have been mapped to specific courses for each program (see below).


Undergraduate Major Curriculum Map: Full

Course

Competence in the discipline of Psychology Critical Thinking Inquiry & Analysis


2 I I I I 4 I I I/D I/D 8 I/D I I I/D 100 I/D D D I/D 101 D D D I(new)/D 102 M M M M 103 M D D D 104 M D D D 106 M D I D 107 M M D M 108 D/M D D D 110 D/M D D D 111 D I I 115 M M D M 116 I D D M 117 D I/D D D 118 M D M I 120 D D D D 121 D/M D D/M D 122 M M D/M M 130 D D D D 134 M D D 135 I/D/M D D D/M 137 I I I I 145 D/M D D 148 M D D 149 M D D 150 M D D 151 M D D 152 M D D 157 M D D 160 D D D D 165 D D D 167 D D D D 168 I/D D D 169 M D D D 171 I D D D 181 M M M D 184 M M M D 185 M D D 190 D/M D D D 191 M M 194 D/M D/M D/M D/M 195 M M M 199 D D D D/M Note: I = Introduced, D = Developed and Practiced with Feedback, M = Demonstrated Mastery (Level Appropriate for Graduation)

Undergraduate Major Curriculum Map: Condensed

Course



Lower-Division I I I I Upper-Division D D D D


Capstone M M M M Note: I = Introduced, D = Developed and Practiced with Feedback, M = Demonstrated Mastery (Level Appropriate for Graduation)

ABA Certificate Curriculum Map

Course

Competence in the discipline of Psychology Clinical Skills Critical Thinking Ethical Reasoning

171 D D 181 M M 184 M D D 191 M M M Note: I = Introduced, D = Developed and Practiced with Feedback, M = Demonstrated Mastery (Level Appropriate for Graduation)

General MA Program Curriculum Map Course Competence in

Psychology Critical

Thinking Inquiry & Analysis

Quantitative Literacy


200 M M M M M 202 203 M D/M D/M D/M D/M 204 M D/M D/M D/M D/M 206 M M 209 M D D 210 M M M D 217 M D D D 251 M D D 260 M M M D M 268 D D D D 283 M D D 294 D/M D/M D D D 295 D D D D D 299 D/M D D D D 500 M M M M M Note: I = Introduced, D = Developed and Practiced with Feedback, M = Demonstrated Mastery (Level Appropriate for Graduation)

Commented [kc1]: We will need to revisit this to establish I, D, M levels. We never introduce.


I/O MA Program Curriculum Map

Competency from SIOP Guidelines CSUS Coursework 206 209

216*

260 262

History and Systems of Psychology x x Fields of Psychology x x Research Methodology x x x x x Statistical Methods & Data Analysis x x x x x Ethical, Legal, and Professional Contexts x x x x x Measurement of Individual Differences x x x Criterion Theory and Development x x x Job and Task Analysis x x x Employee Selection, Placement, and Classification x x x Perform Appraisal and Feedback x x x Training: Theory, Program Design, and Evaluation

x x x

Work Motivation x x Attitude Theory x x Small Group Theory and Process x x Organization Theory x x Organizational Development x x Career Development x x Human Performance x x Consumer behavior x x Compensation and Benefits x x Industrial and Labor Relations x x Note: Psychology 216 varies in content, typically 3 or 4 content areas are covered in-depth in terms of journal articles and an applied research project.

ABA MA Program Curriculum Map

Course

Competence in the discipline of

Psychology Critical

Thinking Ethical

Reasoning Inquiry & Analysis

Problem Solving


271 D D D D D M 272 M D D 274 M M M D 281 M M D D D 284 M D D M 291 M M M Note: I refers to Introducing, D refers to Developing with feedback, M refers to mastering at the level appropriate for a graduate with a Psychology degree. Key Assignments The learning outcomes have also been mapped to specific measurement tools for each course.


Undergraduate Major Measurement Map

Measurement Tool



Multiple Choice Exams

2, 8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 122, 130, 134, 135, 137, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 157, 165, 167, 168, 169,

171, 185, 190

2, 8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 122, 130, 134, 135, 137, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 157, 165, 167, 168, 169, 185,

190

8, 100, 101, 102, 106, 107, 108, 120, 122, 135, 137, 167, 169

8, 116, 122, 135

Written Short Answer Exams

2, 4, 8, 101, 111, 115, 117, 118, 122, 134, 135, 137, 145, 157, 167, 169, 171, 181,

184

2, 4, 8, 101, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 122, 134, 135, 137, 145, 157, 167, 169, 171,

181, 184

8, 101, 102, 117, 122, 135, 137, 167, 169,

171, 181, 184

2, 8, 111, 115, 116, 118, 122, 135, 137, 145, 157, 167, 169,

171, 181, 184

Written Homework Assignments

2, 4, 8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 130, 134, 135, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 157, 160, 165, 168, 169, 194,

195, 199

2, 4, 8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 130, 134, 135, 145, 148, 149, 150, 152, 157, 160, 165, 168, 169, 184, 194,

195, 199

2, 4, 8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 115, 118, 120, 121, 122, 135, 149, 169, 171, 184,

194, 199

2, 4, 8, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 118, 120, 121, 122, 134, 135, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 157, 165, 168, 169, 171, 184, 194, 195,

199

APA Research Papers

8, 100, 101, 102, 115, 120, 121, 122, 130, 134, 135, 149, 151, 152, 167, 190, 194

8, 101, 102, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 130, 134, 135, 149, 151, 152, 167, 190, 194

8, 101, 102, 115, 117, 120, 121, 122, 130, 135, 149, 167, 190,

194

8, 100, 101, 102, 115, 120, 121, 122, 130, 134, 135, 149, 151, 152, 167, 190, 194

In Class Activities 8, 101, 103, 117, 150, 185

8, 101, 103, 117, 121 8, 101, 103, 121 8

Online Homework / Activities

2, 101, 103, 104, 110 2, 101, 103, 104, 110 2, 101, 103, 104, 110 2, 101, 103, 104, 110

Quizzes 111 101 Class Debates 171, 181, 191 171, 181, 191 Discussion Posts to SacCT

150, 185 150, 185 150, 185

Term-Length Projects (Design, Collect Data, Analyze, Interpret, Present)

102 102 102 102

Oral presentation and written outline/speaker notes with citations and references

160 160 160 160


ABA Certificate Measurement Map

Course

Competence in the discipline of Psychology Clinical Skills Critical Thinking Ethical Reasoning

Written Essay Exams

171, 184 191 191


184 184, 191 184

Oral Presentations 191 191 In Class Discussions 171, 184 184, 191 171, 184, 191 191 Class Debates 191 191 191

General MA Measurement Map

Course


Psychology Critical

Thinking Inquiry & Analysis



Written Essay Exams

203, 204, 210, 217, 251, 260, 268

201, 203, 204, 217, 251, 260

203, 204, 210, 260

203, 204 203, 204, 210, 217, 251, 260, 268

APA Research Papers

200, 203, 210, 294, 299, 500

200, 203, 210, 294, 299, 500

200, 210, 203, 204, 294, 299,

500

200, 203, 204, 294, 500

200, 203, 204, 210, 294, 299, 500


203, 204, 209, 217, 251, 260, 294, 299, 500

203, 204, 209, 217, 251, 260,

294, 299

203, 204, 217, 260, 294, 299

202, 203, 204, 299 203, 204, 209, 217, 260, 283, 294, 299

Oral Presentations

200, 203, 210, 217, 251, 268,

283, 294, 295, 500

200, 203, 210, 217, 251, 268, 294, 295, 500

200, 203, 204, 210, 217, 268, 294, 295, 299,

500

200, 203, 204, 294, 500

200, 203

In Class Discussions

200, 203, 204, 210, 217, 251, 260, 268, 294

200, 203, 204, 210, 217, 251, 260, 268, 283,

294, 299

200, 203, 204, 210, 260, 294,

299, 500

200, 203, 204, 260, 294, 500

200

Developing Relevant Class Exercises

200 200 200

Term-Length (Major) Projects

260 260 260 260

Written outline/speaker notes with citations and references

268 268 268 268

I/O MA Program Measurement Map: Forthcoming per curricular revision.

The I/O faculty are currently focusing on specific competencies required of their program by the Society for Industrial/Organizational psychology (SIOP). Based on their focused inquiry they may revise aspects of the curriculum, and thus their measurement strategies may change.

ABA MA Program Measurement Map

Course


Psychology Critical

Thinking Ethical

Reasoning Inquiry & Analysis

Problem Solving


Written Essay Exams

291 291 272 271, 272, 274, 281

APA Research 271, 274, 281, 271, 281, 271, 274, 284, 272,


Papers 284 272, 274 281 Written Homework Assignments

271, 274, 281, 284

284 284 284, 272

Oral Presentations

271 291 272 291, 272

In Class Discussions

284 271, 274, 281, 284, 291

284, 291 272 271, 274, 281, 291,

272

Class Debates 291 291 291

Assessment Plans Based on the process described above, each program has a unique 5-year assessment plan, summarized and detailed below. Each plan reflects the recommendation that 2-3 methods should be used to assess each outcome, combining direct and indirect methods (e.g., 1 quantitative-direct, 1 qualitative-direct, 1 survey-indirect).

Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: Psychology Major L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Competence Capstone: 190 pre-post, Psych

GRE score

Capstone: 190 pre-post, Psych

GRE score


GRE score


GRE score


GRE score Critical Thinking Capstone: 107

paper, Exit survey Capstone: 107

paper, Exit survey

Inquiry & Analysis Capstone: 102 paper,

102 final exam

Capstone: 102 paper,

102 final exam


Capstone: 102 paper, GRE

writing score

Capstone: 102 paper, GRE

writing score


Detailed Plan

L.O. Method of Data Collection

Method of Data Analysis

Timeline Team Members

Competence Capstone exam: PSYC 190 Pretest-Posttest

exam administered by course instructor

(Direct, Quantitative)

Sample: all PSYC 190 students (projected N =

40) Analysis Plan: T-test

comparing pre scores to post scores conducted

by assessment coordinator

Data collected every fall and spring semester

(2013-2018)

Data analyzed every Spring semester for annual assessment report (2013-2018)

Assessment coordinator (in collaboration with

course instructor)

Psychology GRE score self-reported on an exit

survey (Indirect, Quantitative)

Sample: students who elect to take the Psych GRE (projected N =

50) Analysis Plan:

descriptive statistics conducted by

assessment coordinator and compared to

department-elected standard of

performance

Data collected every spring semester from

graduating seniors (2013-2018)



exit survey coordinator)

Critical Thinking Capstone assignment: PSYC 107 paper

assigned by course instructor (Direct,

Qualitative)

Sample: random sample of 30 papers from all PSYC 107

students Analysis Plan: critical

thinking rubric compared to


performance conducted by assessment

committee

Data collected fall 13, spring 14, fall 14, and spring 15 semesters

Data analyzed spring

14 and spring 15 semesters for annual

assessment report

Assessment committee (in collaboration with

course instructor)

Exit survey (Indirect, Qualitative)

Sample: graduating seniors (projected N =

300) Analysis Plan:


assessment coordinator




assessment report



Inquiry & Analysis Capstone assignment: PSYC 102 paper


Qualitative)


students Analysis Plan: inquiry

& analysis rubric compared to



committee




assessment report


course instructor)

Capstone exam: PSYC 102 final exam

administered by course instructor (Direct,

Quantitative)


40) Analysis Plan:

descriptive statistics




course instructor)


conducted by assessment coordinator

and compared to department-elected

standard of performance


assessment report


Capstone assignment: PSYC 102 paper


Qualitative)


students Analysis Plan: written communication rubric

compared to department-elected

standard of performance conducted

by assessment committee




assessment report


course instructor)

GRE Writing score self-reported on an exit


Sample: students who elect to take the GRE

(projected N = 50) Analysis Plan:




performance




assessment report




Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: ABA Certificate L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Competence 171 pre-post; pass rate for BCaBA

exam


exam


exam


exam


exam Clinical Skills 191 oral

presentations; pass rate for

BCaBA exam

191 oral presentations; pass rate for

BCaBA exam

Critical Thinking 191 class debates; Exit survey

191 class debates; Exit survey

Ethical Reasoning 191 class debates; pass rate for

BCaBA exam

191 class debates; pass rate for

BCaBA exam

Detailed Plan L.O. Method of Data

Collection Method of Data

Analysis Timeline Team Members

Competence Course exam: PSYC 171, 181, 184, 191

Pretest-Posttest exam administered by course

instructor (Direct, Quantitative)

Sample: all PSYC certificate students (projected N = 50)

Analysis Plan: T-test comparing pre scores to post scores conducted

by assessment coordinator

Data collected every fall and spring

semester, rotating through the certificate

program courses (2013-14: 171, 2014-15: 181, 2015-16: 184, 2016-17:

191, 2017-18: 171)



course instructor)

BCaBA exam score self-reported on an exit


Sample: students who elect to take the BCaBA exam





performance

Data collected every spring semester from graduating students

(2013-2018)




Clinical Skills Capstone assignment: PSYC 191 oral

presentation assigned by course instructor (Direct, Qualitative)


students Analysis Plan: clinical

skills rubric (to be developed) compared to department-elected



Data collected in fall and spring semesters

(2013-15)

Data analyzed spring 14 and spring 15

semesters for annual assessment report


course instructor)





descriptive statistics


(2013-2018)

Data analyzed every





and compared to department-elected

standard of performance

Spring semester for annual assessment report (2013-2018)

Critical Thinking Capstone assignment: PSYC 191 class

debates assigned by course instructor

(Direct, Qualitative)

Sample: random sample of 30 presenter notes from all PSYC

191 students Analysis Plan: critical

thinking rubric compared to



committee

Data collected fall and spring semesters (2014-

16)




course instructor)


Sample: graduating seniors (projected N =

50) Analysis Plan:




16)





Ethical Reasoning Capstone assignment: PSYC 191 class

debates assigned by course instructor

(Direct, Qualitative)

Sample: random sample of 30 presenter notes from all PSYC

191 students Analysis Plan: ethical reasoning rubric (to be developed) compared to department-elected




17)




course instructor)








performance


(2016-2018)




Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: General Psychology MA

L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 Competence Core course

signature assignment from content courses














Critical Thinking Capstone: thesis, Exit survey






Capstone: thesis, 203 final exam,

Exit survey

Capstone: thesis, 203 final exam,

Exit survey


Capstone: thesis, 200 final paper,

Exit survey

Capstone: thesis, 200 final paper,

Exit survey

Detailed Plan L.O. Method of Data

Collection Method of Data

Analysis Timeline Team Members

Competence Core course signature assignment from

content courses taught this semester

administered by the instructor (Direct,

Quantitative or Qualitative depending on assignment type)

Sample: all students in the class (projected N =

15) Analysis Plan:




performance


semester, but courses will rotate

Data analyzed every Spring semester for annual assessment

report


course instructor)

Critical Thinking Capstone assignment: thesis project paper (Direct, Qualitative)

Sample: all graduating MA students

Analysis Plan: critical thinking rubric compared to



committee




assessment report


assessment coordinator)


Sample: all graduating MA students (projected

N = 10) Analysis Plan:






assessment report



Inquiry & Analysis Capstone assignment: thesis project paper (Direct, Qualitative)


Analysis Plan: inquiry & analysis rubric







assessment report











assessment report



Quantitative Literacy Capstone assignment: thesis project paper


Data collected fall 15, spring 16, fall 16, and



(Direct, Qualitative) Analysis Plan: quantitative literacy rubric compared to department-elected



spring 17 semesters




PSYC 203 final exam administered by course

instructor (Direct, Quantitative)


15) Analysis Plan:




performance




assessment report


course instructor)









assessment report




Capstone assignment: thesis project paper (Direct, Qualitative)


Analysis Plan: written communication rubric







assessment report



PSYC 200 final paper (Direct, Qualitative)


15) Analysis Plan: written communication rubric







assessment report


course instructor)









assessment report




Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: I/O Psychology MA L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Competence Core course signature


taught this semester, Exit

survey




survey




survey




survey




survey Critical Thinking Capstone: thesis,

Exit survey Capstone: thesis,

Exit survey






Detailed Plan




Competence Core course signature assignment from

content courses taught this semester

administered by the instructor (Direct,



15) Analysis Plan:




performance




report


course instructor)


Sample: all graduating I/O MA students (projected N = 5)

Analysis Plan: descriptive statistics





assessment report




Sample: all graduating I/O MA students




committee




assessment report










assessment report



Inquiry & Analysis Capstone assignment: thesis project paper (Direct, Qualitative)



compared to








committee


assessment report








assessment report













assessment report










assessment report




Draft of Five Year Assessment Plan: ABA Psychology MA L.O./Year 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Competence 274 pre-post 281 pre-post 284 pre-post 274 pre-post 281 pre-post Critical Thinking Capstone: thesis;

Exit survey

Ethical Reasoning 291 class debates; Exit survey

Inquiry & Analysis Capstone: thesis; Exit survey

Problem Solving 291 class debates; Exit survey


Capstone: thesis; Exit survey

Detailed Plan




Competence PSYC 274, 281, 284 signature assignment administered by the instructor (Direct,



15) Analysis Plan:




performance




report


course instructor)






committee

Data collected fall 13 and spring 14 semesters


14 semester for annual assessment report













Ethical Reasoning PSYC 291 class debates (Direct,

Qualitative)

Sample: all students enrolled in the class

Analysis Plan: ethical reasoning rubric (to be developed) compared to department-elected







course instructor)











assessment coordinator Inquiry & Analysis Capstone assignment:

thesis project paper (Direct, Qualitative)





















Problem Solving PSYC 291 class debates (Direct,

Qualitative)

Sample: all students enrolled in the class

Analysis Plan: ethical reasoning rubric (to be developed) compared to department-elected







course instructor)

































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