American Studies Program Assessment
BA in American Studies
Program orientation and goal:
American Studies emphasizes the integration of the humanities, fine arts, and social sciences in the study of American experience, past and present. Students develop individual programs of study, with their advisors, to understand and engage American cultures.
Assessment:
Assessment of desired program outcomes in American Studies is direct, with few exceptions, reviewing portfolios of majors’ work in courses they share in American Studies, filed by course and semester. Student work is filed after receiving students’ permission to collect their work for the purposes of assessment and advising. Assessment of student success in internships or field-based learning experiences (see outcome #4 below) is based directly on any documents students produce in the course of the learning experience, or indirectly on reports or presentations following field-based or internship experiences.
Program outcomes and assessment rubrics:
Outcome 1: Students interpret American cultural experience and creative expression, using a variety of objects and ideas important in American cultural life, past and present, not encompassed by any one academic discipline.
Assessment:
Student work demonstrates mastery of, proficiency with, or failure to understand the cultural significance of the following formations in American cultural study:
words
narratives
images
material objects
communities
built environments
cross-cultural comparisons
continuities and discontinuities with the past
Outcome 2: Students understand the processes of diversity in American cultural life, including within their own experience.
Assessment: Student work demonstrates mastery of, proficiency with, or failure in describing the following diversity-related processes, with regard to cultural groups, and students themselves:
identity formation
performance of identity
stereotyping
cultural contact
cultural memory
national identity
Outcome 3: Students demonstrate critical analysis, interpretation, or insight, through effective communication primarily in writing, but also in speaking. When appropriate, performance or display may be assessed for these qualities as well.
Assessment: Student work demonstrates mastery of, proficiency with, or failure in the following communication skills:
analytically coherent interpretive writing
authoritative, informed oral presentation
well-documented, visually effective display (where appropriate)
Outcome 4: Students apply American Studies methods in field-based courses and/or internships.
Assessment: Student use of American Studies approaches and competencies (outlined in Outcomes #1-3 above) may be assessed directly in any documents or presentations produced in the course of completing field-based courses or internships, or indirectly in reports or presentations produced following field-based or internship experiences for which no other documentation of student work exists.
Assessment activities for the 2006-07 academic year:
Program faculty have begun collecting majors’ written work in American Studies 2010, 2110, and 3xxx and 4xxx-level courses, to assess majors’ proficiency in #1-3 outlined above directly, at the completion of fall and spring semesters. Program faculty will discuss results of the year’s assessment before fall 2007 classes begin. This will close the assessment loop for the academic year by refining items included for assessment, and content of courses to address curricular gaps.
Program faculty will assess majors’ application of #1-3 in field-based courses and internships as such student experiences are realized.
