SUBJECT: Assessment
Date: 3/95
I am curious about how other biology departments are handling the challenge
of "assessment" of their freshman level students. What testing
instruments
are you using: your own or nationally recognized ones such as ones used
for
advanced placment? Are you testing at the beginning of the course and the
end? Are you testing all sections or just a percentage? In the two semester
course for bio majors, do you test at the end of Fall term AND Spring or
just
Spring? Are you using multiple choice questions and if so how many?
AND....where the heck do you find the time to fit in another set of tests
that takes more time from lecture???
I appreciate any comments or suggestions you have the time to send my way.
If anyone out there is willing to share what they learned from assessment
testing, I would appreciate knowing that also. Thanks!
From: Emily=Rock%Faculty%WAYNE@auburn.cc.uakron.edu
Dear Emily,
A collegue, Maggie Haag, and I recently completed a survey on the
teaching of Introductory Biology in Canadian universities. Part of our
survey was on how institutions assess their students learning. In
universities of all sizes, the most popular form of assessment of lecture
material was using multiple choice or short answer questions. Less than
half the responding schools used open ended questions and less than 20%
used term papers or project reports for evaluation.
When asked the purposes behind evaluation, almost 100% of respondents
said they were testing Knowledge and Comprehension, 60% tested for
Application of knowledge and less than hlaf tested for Analysis,
Synthesis and Application.
The evaluation of laboratory work was based primarily on responses to
short answer questions. Lab reports are used in evaluation by between
55% and 90% of schools depending on the size ofthe school. The smaller
and less divers a university, the more likely it is that discussions are
evaluated as part of the lab mark, while the opposite trend is seen for
the analysis of data and the display of technical proficiency.
All respondents said the lab evaluations were to test Knowledge and
Comprhension. The importance of evaluating Skills was cited by 60% of
institutions. Less than 30% of respondents evaluated student Attitudes.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of our survey was how the respondents
evaluated the course evaluation and renewal proceedures. Less than 40%
rated their evaluation process as being effective or very effective.
I hope these comments are helpfull.
John Hoddinott,
Biological Sciences,
University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB,
T6G 2E9, Canada.
jhoddino@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
Hello! I'm also very concerned about assessment. Since I teach my own
lecture and up to 5 lab sections, I've had to get creative. I give a
daily quiz. My Freshman Bio Prof did that back in 1962 and I think
that's a great idea. I use 3-part paper. That way, the students can't
change answers. It keeps the students on top of their assignments. The
second copy of the 3-part the student self-corrects. The third copy the
student keeps for their record keeping purposes. I also give an essay
exam the 4th week to separatethose who are serious. I make up some
easy-to grade questions (2 pages only.) The next assessment is a
collaborative scientific journal report--library assignment. After that,
a midterm--I get lazy and use the multiple-choice test bank that comes
with the text at that point. I next have lab points, but after grading
almost 200 lab reports/week, again I do that creatively--orally!
Another one or two journal reports, a couple of field trips and field
reports and that brings us to the term project. I teach them how to
write a simple proposal, then they present at the end of the semester. I
do
this
with a graduate-student-type poster session. It includes collection and
statistical anslysis of measured data, writing of all parts of a
scientific paper (ala their journal reports), peer evaluation, and
another oral report. With all of these different assessment types, I
think I have a better idea of whether they learned anything in my
course. Let's hear from the rest of you! Thanks. Sharron Clark
shclark@cello.gina.calstate.edu
Sharron:
Thanks for the detailed description of your assessment approaches. You have
covered all the possibilities well!
I should have worded my original message more carefully. My concerns are
about the "assessment plans" required of our departments/colleges
for
accreditation purposes. In other words, we have to prove to our accrediting
agency that our students really are learning what we teach and we can't
just
say "Here are their grades." I have to show that my "A"
students have learned
what other "A" students have learned in their freshman biology
courses.
Two years ago I made up a "pre-test" of 30 multiple choice questions
and gave
it the second week. I never got the chance to give it again as the "post"
or
"exit test" due to a lack of time! I never tried again simply
because the
last two weeks of class here contain a lab quiz, the final practical, lab
reports AND student evaluations.
So.... is anybody else out there worried about this type of formal
"assessment" and what methods are they using?
Thanks!
Emily Rock, Associate Professor, Biology
Wayne College
Orrville, Ohio
Sharron,
I was intrigued by your method of assessment. I have just begun
teaching second term freshmen (on a quarter system) and was surprised at
the difference from third term freshmen. We teach a linked organismal
biology course that is fully coordinated with the second term freshman
English composition course. (Next term these will both be first term
courses.) The students design and carry out an experiment on animal behavior
during the 5th and 6th weeks, then write a journal style article as part
of their composition course. I was pleased with the quality of the
journal article, but my frustration arose from having no way for them to
analyze the data in a meaningful way. You mentioned that you have your
students analyze their data. Since freshmen are unlikely to have had any
prior statistics background, how did you do this? Did you work with
simple non-parametrics? Did you teach them the statistics they needed to
know? It would seem like I would need a week to develop even minimal
concepts, and that would have serious impact on the rest of the course
content. Has anyone else solved the problem of interpreting freshmen data
sets?
***********************************
Janice M. Glime
Department of Biological Sciences
Michigan Technological University
Houghton, MI 49931-1295
jmglime@mtu.edu
906-487-2546
FAX 906-487-3167
***********************************
Dear Janice, The first week of our laboratories, we stress a unit on
safety as well as data collection. We have always been amazed at the
lack of understanding our students have of the metric system--and wonder
wherethey have been in the past 12 years.
We introduce our non-majors to data collection both inside the laboratory
and outside in our living field laboratory (California Native Plant
garden.) You are correct in your observation that ours cannot be an
introductory statistics course. We have, however, worked minimally with
some of our math faculty in simple quantitative parameters necessary for
decent scientific lab/field projects. We also introduce graphs and other
simple statistical tools in our first laboratory. It is hoped as more
user-friendly statistics software are developed that our students will be
able to adapt their quantitative data that they collect to more
sophisticsated statistics assessments. This summer I will be refreshing
myself on statistics, and hopefully, will develop some computer-based
exercises for my beginning bio students. Do any of you have simple
software (shareware) or other programs that you use in your labs for
statistical analysis of quantitative data? Thanks. Sharron
Sharron A. Clark <shclark@cello.gina.calstate.edu>
Emily,
I am a research assistant for a group at the U of O concerned with
non-majors biology classes and what the students really learn from them.
After about four years of trying to collect pre and post test data, we have
found it most successful to give the posttest as a practice final. This
means that you have to think carefully about the test before your class,
so
that you can give it as a pretest. But this way you will a more realistic
measure of student learning (and effort) at the end of the class. You do
have to dedicate yourself to this kind of measurement and set aside time
to
do it in order to be successful. We try to collect this data every term
and
have had to pare down our tests to save time.
Stacey
******************************
* Stacey Kiser
* Research Assistant, Workshop Biology
* Biology Department
* 1210 University of Oregon
* Eugene, OR 97403-1210
* (503) 346-5092
* e-mail: slkiser@oregon.uoregon.edu
Hi, everyone:
I'd certainly like to hear from more about assessment efforts. Here's
what's happening on my campus. We've been under pressure to establish a
variety of assessment programs from a number of sources. The most
important, from a practical standpoint, are our legislature and our
accreditors (the North Central folks). Ideally, of course, assessment will
be used as a way for us to identify areas of strength and weakness, and
to
make improvements as necessary. None of us are terribly sure that such
good outcomes will be achieved -- but that's what we're trying for
nonetheless.
One of the types of assessment we're supposed to accomplish is assessment
of student outcomes within majors (or within departments) -- which seems
to
be the major topic of concern for list readers. Our approach, which we're
still working on, includes a number of items. First is a fairly standard
pre-test/post-test covering the material that is covered in our three-
semester intro sequence (Principles; General Botany; General Zoology). The
pre-test is given to incoming majors during their freshman years (this is
a
real hassle -- it's not always easy to identify these folks, and our
Principles course is for both majors and non-majors alike). The post-test
is given just prior to graduation. This test is primarily oriented toward
straight factual content.
We are also working on a content test that will cover the upper-division
core courses (Ecology; Cell; Genetics). Again, this will be given the
semester a student graduates. Combined, these two tests should allow us
to
get a handle on what our students know coming in and what they know when
they leave.
We're also trying to work on a way to assess ability to actually think and
apply basic principles. We're bouncing around the idea of a group oral
exam (that definitely means a group of faculty; we're leaning in the
direction of testing the students in a group as well). With only 4-6
graduates each semester, this isn't a terribly burdensome idea. But,
although we're pretty sure of the kinds of things we want to ask students
to do, we're not quite sure yet how we'll actually put numbers on the
results (and numbers are kind of important to the folks who call the
shots!). Another thing we're thinking about is to add more complex,
problem-solving questions on the written exit exams. As I'm sure you can
tell, this element is still being worked on :)
Finally, we give each graduating senior an essay question of some sort --
to let us evaluate overall writing competency and general thinking skills
-
- and an exit survey asking them their opinions on a variety of things
(quality of teaching, quality of facilities, number and frequency of
elective courses, relevance of cognate courses, etc.).
Obviously, we're just getting started with all this. Soon we'll also have
to do something about assessment in our Principles course, as it also
counts as a general education requirement -- and the general education
program needs its own assessment! We're trying not to think about that yet
:)
I think that, for most of us on my campus, the real question is not whether
or not assessment *can be* a valuable tool -- we all recognize its
potential. What we're not real sure about is the extent to which the
results of our efforts will actually be used to improve teaching and
learning. While we're fairly confident that individual faculty members
will take advantage of the information assessment provides, we're less
certain that our administrators (much less our legislators) will be willing
to provide the real resources (time, personnell, money) necessary to make
fundamental and lasting changes.
Time will tell. Oh -- as others report on their experiences, it might be
helpful to indicate the type of institution involved. Mine is a public 4-
year liberal arts school, with 6 tenure-track and one full-time temporary
faculty members in the Biology department.
Looking forward to hearing from others on this,
Kerry
Kerry S. Kilburn
Dept. of Biology
West Virginia State College
Kerry:
In going back over your assessment response (I was the one worried about
assessment and I greatly appreciated your answers), I noticed you mentioned
a
three semester introductory course for your majors. Would I love to hear
more
about that!!! The thought of being able to take 3 semesters to cover
Campbell...what a luxury!
Has your majors course been 3 semesters for very long? Did you increase
your
degree requirements to cover the extra hours? Is it 4 hours/semester with
labs? Did you eliminate any courses from your core courses when you went
to 3
semesters? What text do you use? What do you call that third semester...can't
say freshmen bio course. How do you handle pre-requisites for courses
students would normally take Fall of their sophomore year? Don't suppose
you'd want to send me the syllabi??
Any advice you can send my way would be helpful. My main campus is thinking
about making some significant changes in our freshman majors course and
we
are examining many options.
Thanks for your time.
Emily Rock
Wayne College
Orrville, Ohio
Hi, labbers:
The change happened some time before I joined the faculty; I believe it
actually went from four semesters to three. The current sequence consists
of Biology 101: Principles of Biology (this is actually a combined course
for majors and non-majors, so it doesn't "solve" the Campbell
problem!),
followed (in any order) by Biology 205: General Botany and Biology 206:
General Zoology. In principle, of course, you could use one good text for
all three courses; we don't do so (I don't recall what the Botany text is;
I've been using Mitchell, Mutchmore and Dolphin in the zoology course, and
am switching to the 9th ed. Hickman next year, but only because the former
text is not being revised).
Biology 101 is a prerequisite for the other two; together, the three are
prerequisites for all the upper-division courses in the core. The main
problem we encounter is that demand tends to exceed supply -- we've only
got one instructor for each of the 200-level courses. And the zoology
course, in particular, is a big service course for virtually all of the
allied-health fields (pre-dentistry, pre-pharmacy, etc.). Even with one
section each semester, students will sometimes be shut out of zoology for
at least a semester.
That problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that lots of our students
need to remediate in math -- which, in turn, means that they get behind
in
their chemistry, which, in turn, means that they won't be taking Cell
Biology and Genetics during their third year. So a semester's delay in
taking one or the other of the 200-level courses doesn't really delay their
progress.
Obviously, we don't have a single syllabus for all three courses -- the
Principles course has the usual common syllabus with way more stuff on it
than any one instructor can cover in a semester! Most of us teach it in
a
pretty traditional "bottom-up" fashion, with most of the focus
on cell
biology. That's good for the Biology majors, but doesn't work all that
well for the non-majors. We're still grappling with that one.
Hope that helps -- if you have more questions, just let me know.
Best,
Kerry