Gender and Women's Studies Annual Assessment Report to the College 2016-2017

Abstract

The Gender and Women's Studies department 2016-17 annual assessment report to the College of Humanities for the Office of Academic Assessment and Program Review. The department directly assessed program SLO 2 (Students recognize the gender dimension of social, economic, cultural, historical, political, national and global inequalities, become familiar with a range of past and present major issues affecting women and men in society and learn how to critically assess these issues from a feminist perspective) via an ungraded pre-and-post test administered in 3 sections of GWS 351. Results indicate student score increases on all 4 test questions, summarized as follows: Conceptual knowledge: 1.41; Ability to define/identify: .75; Ability to give examples: .38; Articulate a feminist analysis: .21. The report analyzes the scores, noting that "most students failed to draw on specific materials covered in GWS 351 to provide examples even through the question specifically asked them to do so. Also, when asked to offer an analysis many students simply inserted a question mark (indicating that they do not understand the question itself), left the space completely blank, or responded by repeating an example of a gender-based inequality rather than a feminist analysis. For many students the difference between offering an example of inequality versus offering a feminist analysis of why that inequality persists was lost." Future attention to clarification and simplification of the program SLOs, further alignment and GWS courses with the program SLOs, and further exploration of the overall learning goals of the major, are all noted in the report's interpretation of the assessment results, and will be addressed by the department in its 2017-18 assessment activities.