History

Assessment Plan

Required Courses	Evaluation Schedule
HIST 1700 American Institutions	every semester
HIST SS1500 World History to 1500 C.E.	every semester
Hist SS/DV1510 World Hist from 1500 C.E.	every semester
HIST 2700 History of the U.S. to 1877	every semester
HIST 2710 History of th U.S. since 1877	every semester
HIST 3000 Investigating History	every semester
HIST 4990 Senior Seminar	every semester

See full report for remaining course assessment

Methods of assessment

We have several methods of assessment, many of them new this year. For History 1700, 2700, and 2710, we are using standardized pre and post tests for all sections of these courses and are aggregating the data. We began that process in the Spring of 2015 for 1700 and the Fall of 2015 for 2700/2710, and we’ll continue it for the foreseeable future. The questions are tagged by learning outcome. The World Historians are in the process of redesigning their assessment tools. They are developing a new measure to see how well the classes meet the new general education outcomes. Those instruments will be used starting this spring. The Department developed a new grid for upper division courses, which is attached below. This grid lists all learning outcomes for the dept. Faculty choose an assignment from the upper division course they are assessing, link it to the appropriate learning outcomes, and measure how many students’ assignments demonstrate mastery (4 pts), strength (3), met expectations (2), or needed work (1) on a particular outcome. In addition, we have developed specific new grids for 4985 and 4990. Some faculty use additional methods such as portfolios to supplement these approaches. We also survey students in all upper division courses as to whether the courses met learning outcomes. Finally, we continue to use our exit interview for graduating seniors, which is tagged to all 23 learning outcomes.
Here is the form we have started to use for upper division assessment. Faculty choose an assignment from their class, tag it with appropriate learning outcomes, and measure how many students show mastery, strength, meet expectations, or need work. Those ratings are correlated to a numerical scale with 4 being mastery, 1 needing work. A 2 is the acceptable threshold for performance.

Assessment Report Submissions
- 2021-2022
  
  1)   Review and comment on the trend of minority students enrolling in your classes (particularly lower-division, GEN Ed) and in your programs.
  
  Our new AI 1600, 1610, and 1620 courses constitute a direct effort to promote minority student enrollment and recruitment and to present the History Department as inclusive and welcoming. History 1600 is the first course to be offered in Fall 2021 and we will be tracking these students to see if they become new majors or at least take more history classes.
  
  2)   What support (from enrollment services, advising, first-year transition office, access & diversity, etc.) do you need to help you recruit and retain students?
  
  -The History Department would appreciate help tracking the Fast-Start students after they take the new course designed to help first-year transition. We're interested to find out if the environment with greater student support produces long-term success.
  -As mentioned above, too, if GEIAC is going to assess the Big Question/Significant Assignment, it would be useful to receive department-level feedback about student outcomes in a specific course (e.g. all sections of 1700 – here is the general observation).
  -And finally, the History Department could really use consistent advising across campus on student fulfillment of AI. The department has endeavored to contact advisors across campus to urge them all to advise non-History majors to take History 1700 or 1600, 1610, 1620 even if they have already taken 2700 or 2710. Because History 2700/2710 is geared toward the History Major, we have found that non-majors who take the course(s) do not perform as well and if their single goal is to fulfill AI, History 1700, 1600, 1610, 1620 is the most appropriate, since it takes both 2700 and 2710 to fill the AI requirement or only one of the other courses.
  
  3)   We have invited you to re-think your program assessment. What strategies are you considering? What support or help would you like?
  
  See above.
  
  4)   Finally, we are supporting our Concurrent Enrollment accreditation process. Does your program offer concurrent enrollment classes? If so, have you been able to submit the information requested from the Concurrent Enrollment office? Staff from OIE will reach out to you in the next few months to assist in finalizing that data submission as well as gather information for concurrent Gen Ed assessment.
  
  History is single-handedly making Nicole Butler’s accreditation report more viable. We have provided all the information CE has requested and we are leading out on many, many fronts in CE, including the incorporation of BQ/SA in CE and implementation of PD opportunities. Our CE History 1700 Master Class will be a model for many.
  
  The full report is available for viewing.
- 2019-2020
  1) First year student success is critical to WSU’s retention and graduation efforts. We are interested in finding out how departments support their first-year students. Do you have mechanisms and processes in place to identify, meet with, and support first-year students? Please provide a brief narrative focusing on your program’s support of new students:
  - Our faculty have been active participants in the inauguration and utilization of Starfish. This has resulted in a noticeable up-tick in students coming in to meet with professors during office hours and earlier in the semester, when there is still time to salvage a grade.
  - Our innovative History 2000 course Introduction to the Craft of History, is a one-credit course for newly declared history majors designed to introduce students to different subfields within history; to familiarize them with the standard modes of researching, interpreting, analyzing, and citing historical sources; and to teach them how to build an historical argument. It is a team taught course, calling upon all of the faculty from the History Department. We specifically initiated the course in response to student responses in qualitative assessment instruments that indicated a lack of preparation for and understanding of the field prior to taking upper-division courses. We advise students to take History 2000 in their freshman year for this reason.
  - We also constantly monitor our graduation maps to ensure they are focused on student success (revised Fall 2019).
  - We successfully argued that replacing itinerant adjuncts teaching first-year courses with an established full-time instructor would directly benefit students, particularly first-year students. Starting in July 2019, we hired Dr. Nathan Rives in this capacity. Having a full-time History Instructor with a PhD in History allows us more capably to meet student demands for classes essential to their graduation by scheduling courses at the high-demand times and dramatically increasing the number of students taught by a professor with a terminal degree in the field. This position also allows us to consistently schedule a portion of Dr. Rives’ load at the Davis campus. This produces a familiar “face of the department” on the Davis campus, encourages student enrollment and retention, and facilitates students transitioning to the main campus by having a vested member of the department consistently present on both campuses. Dr. Rives can also offer sections of History 1700 online, which has proved VERY popular.
  - One area where our department is facing a challenge is the failure rate for students taking History 1700 while also taking Developmental Math and English. This, it turns out, is a toxic combination of classes. As the chart below shows, of the 31 students who were taking that combination, 23 (or 74%) failed HIST 1700.
  - This is untenable. To address this concern, which also falls under #2 below (“close the loop”), the History Department strongly encourages ALL university advisors to counsel students that students needing remedial math and English (or Dev-Dev students) should not be taking History 1700 at least until after they are remediated. Unfortunately, with Weber as the only USHE school w/o admissions requirements, this issue is largely a systemic one, not, for the most part, a departmental or course level problem.
  - Nevertheless, the History Department is pro-actively addressing this concern by developing a new variation of History 1700 (akin to the Math 1810 course) that addresses the specific challenges Dev-Dev students encounter in a traditional History 1700 course. Taught by Dr. Kathryn MacKay, long known for her commitment to pedagogy, this class will debut in Spring 2020 and feature much more interactive/hands-on learning, small-group work, and peer learning assistance. Departmental faculty have identified students who are struggling in Fall 2019 for possible inclusion in this course in the spring. We will re-visit the data table above after a year to see if this toxic brew has mellowed. This is an Action Step and a Metric in our Strategic Plan under Objective #1.
  2) A key component of sound assessment practice is the process of ‘closing the loop’ – that is, following up on changes implemented as a response to your assessment findings, to determine the impact of those changes/innovations. It is also an aspect of assessment on which we need to improve, as suggested in our NWCCU mid-cycle report. Please describe the processes your program has in place to “close the loop.”
  - Development of a departmental Strategic Plan is fundamental to “closing the loop” and the history department has actively implemented its Plan in various areas described above and below.
  For example, based on these assessments, the department is moving forward and “closing the loop” by implementing more reflective and effective qualitative assessment measures in the lower division courses. In our upper division courses, qualitative student responses indicate extremely high levels of student satisfaction with the efficacy of their learning and course work, which is borne out by the results on both the departmental Learning Outcomes rubrics and the Senior Exit Interview Survey. Thus, the department’s action plan remains one of commitment to the high level of quality instruction and overall excellence in teaching we are currently providing. This “stay the course” action plan is validated in our 5-Year Program Review, where the outside evaluators wrote:
  - “The Weber State University Department of History undertook a revision of its curriculum in the five years since its prior external review. Its revised curriculum is cohesive and well organized. In its curriculum revision, the department tied the organizational structure of its courses to its learning outcomes and has thereby created a unified teaching vision for its faculty and students. We commend the department for such a thoroughly organized articulation of its curriculum and how well it translates to specific learning outcomes, something that our interview with history majors verified. The department also offers the only public history minor in the state of Utah. The department’s trailblazing and foresight in this area is commendable. Students singled out the public history offerings as particularly valuable preparation for and introduction to a variety of job opportunities and specifically mentioned public history internships as one facet of that preparation that they prized.
  The full report is available for viewing.
- 2017
  1) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
  - Given the University’s on-going efforts to revise and improve GenEd, the History Department will incorporate the recommendations for GenEd Revitalization – specifically the new Gen Ed Learning Outcomes (GELO) tools: The “Big Question” and “Signature Assignment.”This will be in addition to our commitment, starting in Spring of 2018, to tie our learning outcomes to test responses in individual classes, which should give a more accurate assessment of student comprehension and achievement while maintaining a focus on learning outcomes and departmental mission – an approach our World Historians are already utilizing effectively.
  2) We are interested in better understanding how departments/programs assess their graduating seniors or graduate students. Please provide a short narrative describing the practices/curriculum in place for your department/program. Please include both direct and indirect measures employed. Finally, what were your findings from this past year’s graduates?
  - All graduating History Majors receive a detailed Exit Interview Survey in their capstone History 4990 course. One side is a subjective, written response to questions that address qualitative issues such as effectiveness of advising, assignments, preparation, and range of fields, times, and courses offered. The other side lists the department’s Learning Outcomes and asks students to quantitatively assess the 23 goals on a scale of 1-4 (1=weak/4=strong). The quantitative results are listed above in F. Report of assessment results for the most previous academic year, but the qualitative comments indicate that students, generally, have a very favorable evaluation of the history department, its faculty, its advising, and the quality of their education.
  The full report is available for viewing.
- 2016
- 2015
  1) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
  - The assessments yielded interesting information: Students do seem to score higher in meeting the learning outcomes the further they go in the history program. By the time they are in 4985 and 4990, the numbers are generally higher than they were in some of the introductory classes. Next year, by the way, we will refine our senior thesis scale so that it will better align with the 4985 scale (right now the first is a 1-5 scale; the second a 1-4; next year everything will be 1-4). These findings indicate that students are acquiring skills over the course of the major.
  - We do plan on adding a new course to help further. We have been drafting a 1 credit course proposal for History 2000, which would introduce students to the faculty and their varying perspectives; offer them help in making an argument and researching and writing papers; teach them about scholarly ethics; and develop a sense of a cohort among them.
  2) Are there assessment strategies within your department or program that you feel are particularly effective and/or innovative? If so, what are those strategies and what do you learn about your students by using them?
  - We adapted our new grid from one developed by the American Historical Association, our discipline’s governing body. That body also was behind the creation of the 23 learning outcomes which we use in our department. Using one grid across the curriculum has made it easier to track student progress.
  The full report is available for viewing.
- 2014
  1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
  - We feel that we are in a strong position both in terms of the health of our program and the robustness of our assessment efforts. Our assessments show that students are learning and each year we find better ways to measure and document this as well as new means of fine tuning our offerings.
  - We have definitely become more mindful of areas we need to strengthen and we have tried to remedy the issues we have identified.
  - We are in discussions about a new course that would introduce majors to the norms of historical writing, because many faculty worry that their students are not equipped with that skill early enough. The course would also address issues of citation and attribution in scholarly writing.
  - We have committed to changing our American Institutions assessment so that it more closely mirrors that offered by other departments. We will tag learning outcomes and aggregate the results by department rather than by individual instructors.
  - We have also made changes to help students once they graduate. For instance, one recurring comment in exit interviews has been a request for more career guidance. In response, Prof. Matt in her 4985 course, brought individuals in to the class to speak to students about possible career paths. Two history teachers from Ogden High offered guidance about how to obtain a teaching position; archivists talked about internship possibilities and career paths after graduation; the Director of the Walker Institute talked about internships in the public sector; and various professors have offered ongoing guidance about careers in academia. Building on this momentum, the Dept. is planning a January career day for its majors and minors. During graduation clearance meetings with our majors, we have made a point of interviewing them about their future plans and offering departmental resources to help them. We have also invested in Praxis study materials which are available to them even after they graduate.
  Individual faculty have offered the following comments on assessment and what it has made them do differently in their classes:
  - Professor Branden Little: History 3280 US Military History, 1500-1890
  - In response to uneven student performance on a midterm essay related to historiographical debates in colonial military history, I altered two class presentations and the midterm essay question for the current semester's class to better emphasize Learning Outcomes 5A-B (to evaluate debates among historians; differentiate between historical facts and interpretations), which resulted in improved student comprehension as demonstrated by in class discussion and written exam essays.
  Professor Gene Sessions:
  - Given all the emphasis recently on learning outcomes, I have added or increased the listings of those on all syllabi and have begun to discuss directly with students these objectives. I have also begun to discuss more often while teaching the ways the course deals with the objectives and to mention more often how specific activities in a class apply to a particular learning objective.
  Professor Sara Dant:
  - After teaching both History 4985 and 4990, I realized that many students were not adequately prepared to develop and write a senior seminar paper. Combining this realization with several of the learning goals articulated by the department, I have since restructured my upper division courses in US Environmental History and the two-part American West sequence. In all three of these classes, I now hand out discussion questions prior to class meetings that ask students to identify and evaluate the author's thesis, to analyze the author's choice and use of sources, to summarize the author's argument(s), and to critique the writing methodology and style. I have also made sure that all of the papers that my students write have Turabian citation requirements, so that they become familiar with the technique prior to the capstone course.
  Professor Greg Lewis:
  - As I mentioned the other day, one noticeable improvement in both my 1500 classes this fall (and they are big ones; one with 70 and another with 50) is with questions/essays dealing with South Asia. Regarding multiple choice questions, the two sections totaled about a 16% improvement over the previous year in correct answers (to three questions about South Asia/out of 20 total). Further, my estimate for their recently completed second test is about the same; a 15-16% improvement over last year for four questions about South Asia/out of 20 total.
  - Much more impressive than this, however, is the number of students choosing to write synthesis papers and essay answers on the tests. In past years I would have at most 10% of students writing about South Asia. This year it is easily 40%, and more importantly, they are identifying the significant historical elements and providing as well their own commentary. I cannot remember a single "breakthrough" of this kind in my years here at WSU, and it is most gratifying. Although I have stepped up my coverage about South Asia, giving it more emphasis (including teaching an upper division class on South Asia as part of my regular rotation), the excellent coverage given the subject in Craig Lockard's textbook [Societies, Networks, and Transitions] could also be a reason.
  - Whatever the cause, it is a happy and real development, and for this semester's 120 world history students at least, they've made what I consider extraordinary improvement in learning about South Asian societies between 3000BCE and 600CE.
  Professor Susan Matt:
  - In response to assessment evidence, I enhanced the career section in 4985 as described above. I also have scheduled a career day for majors in January. In evaluating my students’ writing, I realized that many of them had no organization to their papers, so I have now revised my syllabus for 4985 and required students to submit an outline of their senior thesis, to prompt them to think about how to structure an argument. They are just about to turn those outlines in. I will institute similar requirements in my other upper-division courses in order to make sure that students master these skill (which are encapsulated in learning outcomes 12, 15, 19, 22 and 23).
  Professor John Sillito:
  - During the past year I have included a more deliberate writing assignment in both History 2700 and 2710. I assign either an essay question, or select a common book for the class to read, and respond to it in a paper of approximately five pages. I stress the importance of using Turabian/Chicago, and spend some time giving an overview of it in class. While not everyone in those classes is a history major/minor, for those who are this is one more way of getting them better prepared for 4985/4990. Obviously I have similar assignments in all my upper division classes.
  2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?
  - The History Department and the Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
  3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
  - We are revising some of our assessment tools, such as the general education tests. We are continuing our efforts to match our learning outcomes to our course objectives and assignments.
  The full report is available for viewing
- 2013
  1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
  - Although many began the assessment program with some trepidation several years ago, it has now become something that faculty are doing freely and willingly. As a group we have become more attentive to the importance of articulating student learning outcomes and assessing whether these are being met. Many faculty have enthusiastically embraced the digital tools embedded in Canvas and Chitester that offer a glimpse of how we are doing. Overall, the assessment process this year has been even more robust than in years past, and faculty have become more adept at it. Our results indicate that the History Department is successfully meeting its mission and fulfilling its learning goals.
  2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?
  - We talked about them in general terms at the statewide majors meeting. The Dean and the Department have of course seen them as well.
  3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?
  - I think our main goal for next year will be to produce more varied types of assessment throughout the curriculum, so that we have an even fuller picture of how our students are doing.
  To access the full report, select this link: History 2012/13 Annual Assessment Report
Program Review