ASSESSMENT REPORT

PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

June 1997

Preamble

The "Guidelines for 1997 Assessment Reports" issued by the Provost’s office in April 1997 pose six questions. In general, those questions presuppose the accumulation of data that the Philosophy Department will not possess until the end of next academic year. The department’s assessment program used this past academic year was the one proposed and approved for inclusion in the University’s report to the North Central Accreditation team. The goals, procedures to achieve the goals, and the assessment methods embodied in that assessment program are described below and basically involve current curricular requirements.

Believing that our assessment program needed careful examination during the 1996-97 academic year, a Philosophy Department Assessment Committee was constituted consisting of Gene Blocker, Donald Borchert, Algis Mickunas and George Weckman. The Committee was chaired by the department chair, Donald Borchert. The Committee’s task was to examine the department’s current strategies for assessing learning and to make recommendations for revision and enhancement of those strategies. In the Spring Quarter the Committee presented its recommendations to the entire philosophy faculty. A series of faculty meetings were held to discuss the Committee’s report. Spirited debate resulted in the plan described below. The plan involves three components: strategies that are already in place, strategies that we will be inaugurating during AY 1997-98, and investigations that we will be conducting during AY 1997-98.

Plan for Assessing Student Learning

Our plan involves soliciting information from four groups of students: (1) our undergraduate majors; (2) the non-major undergraduates we serve; (3) our graduate students; and (4) our alumni/ae majors.

(1) Our Undergraduate Majors

The plan for assessment of our majors described below involves current curricular requirements plus the inauguration of a Senior Seminar about which the department is genuinely excited.

Goal: Acquire knowledge of the history of Procedure to Achieve Goal: Phil.310 &

philosophy 312 as required courses.

Assessment method: passing course

requirements.

Goal: Acquire logical skill at an intermediate Procedure to Achieve Goal: Phil.320 as

level. a required course.

Assessment method: passing course

requirements.

Goal: Acquire knowledge of some of the Procedure to Achieve Goal: 25 hours of

subfields of philosophy. elective courses in philosophy, 3 courses of

which must be numbered 400 or above.

Assessment method: passing course

requirements.

Goal: Acquire skill at presenting and Procedure to Achieve Goal: Senior

defending a philosophical paper. Seminar required.

Assessment method: passing course

requirements described below.

The Senior Seminar

[a] The Seminar will be inaugurated Winter Quarter 1997-98 to prepare students for presentations at the annual meetings of the Ohio Philosophical Association and/or the Ohio Academy of Religion which are convened during the Spring Quarter.

[b] With the exception of the inaugural year, the Seminar will be conducted by one faculty member who will receive one course credit on his or her teaching load. During the inaugural year, the Seminar will be team taught by the Chair and Assistant Chair as an overload.

[c] Students will be asked to assemble a portfolio of the papers they have written for philosophy courses at the 300 level or above during their studies at Ohio University.

[d] Students will be asked to rework one of the papers from their portfolios.

[e] If possible, faculty to whom the papers were originally submitted will serve as resource persons for the reworking of the papers.

[f] The seminar will meet at the beginning of the quarter for planning purposes and will meet every three to four weeks thereafter so that students may discuss the progress of their projects with their peers.

[g] The faculty seminar leader will plan and convene a "mock" conference at the end of the quarter during which students will present their completed papers for critique by designated reactors and the public in attendance.

[h] Attempts will be made to have the students present their papers in a student section at the annual meetings of the Ohio Philosophical Association and/or the Ohio Academy of Religion.

[I] During AY 1997-98 the philosophy faculty will examine the feasibility of enriching the Senior Seminar with a series of sessions designed to survey current research in the major subfields of philosophy so that majors will graduate with an overview of the current scene in philosophical investigations.

(2) The Non-major Undergraduates We Serve

The plan for assessment of the learning achieved by the non-major undergraduate students we serve involves current curricular requirements plus the addition of entrance and exit tests.

Philosophy Courses in General

Goals: Acquire knowledge about some Procedure to Achieve Goals: Studying

of the perennial philosophical questions. selections from primary and secondary

sources.

Assessment method: passing course

requirements: exams and/or papers.

Goal: Growth in critical thinking and values Procedure to Achieve Goal: the course

clarification. work.

Assessment method: entrance and exit

tests as described below.

Entrance and Exit Tests

[a] The Philosophy Department recognizes that it is difficult to prepare an entrance test to measure growth in critical thinking and values clarification within the context of philosophical issues without presupposing some knowledge of philosophical matters which few students bring to the first day of class.

[b] In spite of [a], several members of the Philosophy Department will construct and administer on an experimental basis entrance/exit tests for their courses during the AY 1997-98. The experiment will be run in the following courses:

Philosophy 130 - Introduction to Ethics,

Philosophy 160 - Introduction to Religion,

Philosophy 216 - Philosophy of Science Survey,

Philosophy 361 - Old Testament,

Tier III - 414F - Stories and the Pursuit of Meaning.

[c] The faculty plan to use the same instrument for the entrance test and the exit test.

[d] The faculty plan to investigate the financial feasibility of using an external examination that has been normed regional and/or nationally to assess learning in Philosophy 120, our introductory logic course.

(A copy of the entrance/exit test we plan to use in Tier III - 414F is included at the end of this report.)

(3) Our Graduate Students

For the past decade the Philosophy Department has been seeking to serve several different student-oriented goals with its M.A. program depending on the type of student entering our program. First, the department seeks to provide students coming from a strong undergraduate program with an opportunity to deepen and broaden their expertise in philosophy in order to prepare them for entrance into doctoral programs. Second, the department seeks to provide an opportunity for able students with a limited background in philosophy to explore philosophy as a career. Third, the department seeks to provide on a very limited basis a "second chance" opportunity for students with a less than strong academic background in philosophy to prove themselves capable of pursuing graduate work successfully with us as a prelude to application to doctoral programs.

Clearly, one measure of the success of our M.A. program is what our students do upon graduation. We have been rather successful with respect to our goals in regard to the nine students who will have completed all their requirements by the end of this summer. With respect to the first goal, 4 students will be pursuing doctoral studies at the following fine doctoral programs: Purdue, Rochester, Loyola Chicago, and the University of Maryland. Three of those students have been awarded TAships. . With respect to our second goal, two of our graduate students will be attending top tier law schools: the University of Illinois at Champagne/Urbana, and the Ohio State University; one of our students will be pursuing a business career in Cleveland; and one student is undecided about the future. With respect to our third goal, one student entered on academic probation, did extremely well in all her courses, and achieved truly outstanding scores on her GRE’s. Her future plans are uncertain.

During the next academic year the Philosophy Department plans to examine the goals of its M.A. program and the curricular strategies that it currently has in place to pursue those goals. Particular attention will be paid to a scrutiny of the comprehensive examination route as opposed to the thesis route for completing the program.

(4) Our Alumni/ae Majors

The Philosophy Department has secured mailing labels for all graduates of our program during the past ten years (both undergraduate and graduate) and has prepared a questionnaire to be sent to these alumni/ae. The questionnaire is designed to solicit the perceptions of learning and satisfaction with our program that our former students possess, and to ask them for suggestions as to how they think our program could be improved. While the information derived from this questionnaire does not directly assess student learning, it can provide us with a measure of student perceptions which speaks directly to the quality of the learning environment we are seeking to provide. (A copy of the questionnaire we plan to use is included at the end of this report.)

Plan for Determining Student Perceptions of Learning and Satisfaction

(1) The standard Arts & Sciences student course evaluations will continue to be administered in all the Department’s courses every quarter.

(2) An additional assessment questionnaire will be administered to determine student perceptions of learning and satisfaction, and will

[a] be a slightly modified version of the questionnaire used for alumni/ae;

[b] be administered during regular A & S course evaluation time;

[c] be completed by students who have had 2 or more courses in Philosophy at O.U. prior to their current one;

[d] be given in all courses except Phil. 120.

Plan for Continued Assessment

In order to remain creatively self-critical of our assessment plans and the data they generate, the Philosophy Department intends to do pursue the following tasks in AY 1997-98.

(1) The department will examine the issue of grades to determine, if possible, to what extent grades are adequate indicators of student learning.

(2) The department will examine the senior seminar with an eye to enhancing it through the means suggested above.

(3) The department will study the results of the experimental entrance/exit tests to determine

[a] if the results are significant indicators of learning,

[b] if the tests need to be modified, and

[c] if it seems feasible to develop similar tests for other courses.

(4) The department will ask the Graduate Committee to re-examine the goals, procedures and assessment vehicles of the M.A. program.

(5) The department will study the responses from the questionnaires given to alumni/ae and current students to determine if insight is generated for enhancing the learning environment in the department.

(6) The department will seek funding to have an external assessment expert in the humanities visit our department for a day to provide us with insight for enhancing learning through intelligent evaluation.

A Sample Entrance/Exit Exam

For

Tier III - 414F: Stories and the Pursuit of Meaning

(Instructor: Donald M. Borchert)

Please write a brief essay responding to the following questions.

What meaning if any do you believe human life possesses? Why do you hold that belief?

A Sample Questionnaire

Relating to Student Perceptions of Learning and Satisfaction

For

Philosophy Alumni/ae

Section A

Please answer the following questions using the attached computer scan sheet. Please use the following 1 to 5 scale.

1 = strongly disagree

2 = disagree

3 = neutral

4 = agree

5 = strongly agree

(1) Courses in the Philosophy Department have challenged me.

[1] strongly disagree; [2] disagree; [3] neutral; [4] agree; [5] strongly agree.

(2) Courses in the Philosophy Department have clarified my values.

[1] strongly disagree; [2] disagree; [3] neutral; [4] agree; [5] strongly agree.

(3) Courses in the Philosophy Department have given me information about the thoughts and thinking processes of others.