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Assessment/Learning Outcomes II TrackSummary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2006

Paul Edleman,
Jocelyn Evans,
Halima Khan,
Jessica Schattschneider and
Michelle Hale Williams
Paul Edleman
Affiliation:
Sauk Valley Community College
Jocelyn Evans
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
Halima Khan
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University
Jessica Schattschneider
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
Michelle Hale Williams
Affiliation:
University of West Florida
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Extract

At the third annual APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, attendeesin the Assessment/Learning Outcomes II session engaged in vigorousdiscussion over how best to integrate assessment with learning. Theparticipants reflected a good mix of both community college anduniversity perspectives, yet found that the necessity forefficacious assessment cuts across the discipline; concerted effortsshould be made to encourage and enhance learning and consequently,assessment. Key themes that emerged from the track are reviewedbelow.

Information

Type
2006 APSA TEACHING AND LEARNING CONFERENCE TRACKSUMMARIES
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , July 2006, pp. 538 - 539
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

At the third annual APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, attendees in the Assessment/Learning Outcomes II session engaged in vigorous discussion over how best to integrate assessment with learning. The participants reflected a good mix of both community college and university perspectives, yet found that the necessity for efficacious assessment cuts across the discipline; concerted efforts should be made to encourage and enhance learning and consequently, assessment. Key themes that emerged from the track are reviewed below.

Fostering a Measurable Assessment Culture

Conference participants acknowledged the challenges of fostering a measurable assessment culture within the political science discipline. A recurring idea was that if political science does not govern its own discipline with respect to assessment, someone else would. To this end, APSA should take the lead in providing resources to departments and faculty interested in developing assessment programs. Some of these resources may include an APSA web site where members can access examples of “best” and “worst” practices posted by other members, sample department programs' missions and learning objectives, and utilize a test question databank. Assessment need not be difficult or threatening. In most instances, it can be embedded within the larger teaching and learning context and actually reinforce active learning pedagogy. In fact, many of us already perform assessment without recognizing it as such. It is often simply a matter of documenting what we are doing in the classroom and in the department, and then using the information to provide feedback. At the classroom level, closing the feedback loop can help improve classroom teaching and evaluate the usefulness of new experimental learning techniques. At the department level, assessment can be used in the program review process to advocate for the purchase of new equipment, justify the hiring of additional faculty, or increase department funding.

Recognizing What We Don't Know in Political Science

The presentations to the working group covered a wide range of topics from study abroad to information literacy education. In the end, however, all of them raised similar questions, which resulted in the recognition of three basic problems. First, we have no empirical knowledge about the impact of factors such as gender, GPA, and class ranking on the learning process. Second—and most discussed—is the question of what makes a meaningful assessment that is specific to political science, which not only focuses on knowledge but on skills and literacy—and all this without running the risk of repeating the mistakes implemented in K–12. As in previous years, devising an effective way to evaluate critical thinking headed the list of priorities, followed by the measurement of civic participation. Third, the majority of participants perceived that when becoming acquainted with assessment, it seems as if we are re-inventing the wheel, rather than crossing the Rubicon. There was an agreed desire for the discipline to discover a way of gathering and sharing national data on assessment and evaluation in political science.

Measuring Political Participation/Active Citizenship

With the shift toward learning outcomes across academia, political science has positioned itself as the discipline that best cultivates political participation. However, active citizenship has proven challenging to assess. Our track discussed several possibilities for better assessment. Understanding information emerged as a precursor to active citizenship; we discussed how students must be able to determine the nature of information needed, to collect, sort, and analyze information, and to apply information to a particular task. Political science and library faculty suggested information literacy education as a tool. As active citizens, students must think critically. To do so they must make applications and reason logically toward analysis; measures of recall do not capture these skills. We discussed the importance of active learning assignments. Student context appears to holistically affect the way that students choose to engage, so we collectively began to refer to it as the “ecosystem.” One presentation highlighted survey results showing that contemporary students engage in new forms of activism. These include wearing a yellow wristband, blogging, signing online petitions, text messaging poll responses, and boycotting a company. We wondered whether active citizens today “bowl alone” rather than together. Students appear to have a sense of efficacy through such actions and future studies of active citizenship may need to consider including them in analysis.

Future Areas of Research

One of the major themes to emerge concerned future areas of research. We, as a discipline, would benefit from better theory, better data, and more comparative research on assessment. At its core, assessment lacks a clear theoretical framework. We should think through the broader purposes of assessment as well as the specific ways in which assessment can be used to facilitate better teaching. While individual teacher-scholars are conducting excellent classroom experiments to improve personal and institutional assessment instruments, participants noted the need for collaborative data-collection across institutions as well as across disciplines. APSA might consider hosting assessment-related data available for public use. In addition, a major consensus of those in Assessment Track II was that there is a need to compare assessment tools as well as outcomes across various institutional settings, various levels of political science education, and various modes of instruction. By comparing assessment across public and private institutions, graduate and undergraduate courses, distance learning and traditional classroom settings, study abroad and on-campus environments, and elective and required course settings, we can more accurately identify what educational opportunities lead to what educational outcomes.

Conclusions

As can be evidenced from the preceding discussion, two pressing issues come to the fore: How best to integrate learning and assessment, and what should be the role of the APSA in the area of assessment? Every participant felt an obligation to enhance students' learning so that the educators can better equip them with critical thinking skills that can be transported across disciplines. An oft-repeated criticism of the field is that political science is theory without context; both presenters and discussants felt a need to mesh the two so that students can grasp the material being taught and that educators wield a tool to measure such learning. Another area of discussion was whether contemporary standards should be assimilated in learning and assessment to spark the interests of the students. As mentioned earlier, activism among students is of a different nature than activism of earlier generations. The fact that paucity in knowledge assessment has been noticed and efforts are being made to address the issue gives tremendous hope to those passionate about teaching.