Let me add a "me too." I agree with the use of the MFT and also agree with the Rick and others that the pre-test may not be the best idea. We did the pretest/posttest once and it was not very good on the pretest end. First was the problem that we gain & lose majors along the way, and, many of the pretest takers were not intellectually invested in the major yet, so we had a number who viewed it as a chore. We did it twice with seniors, though, and this was useful as we both spotted a few weaknesses and subsequently noticed a slight improvement after some curricular changes (with the usual caveat that this is non-experimental, etcetera). I know you can identify sub-groups (as we did), though I don't know how ETS would handle requests to not include pretests in subsequent normative data. I remember hearing (but not the source) that some schools stopped using it if they scored low, which would push up the mean of the normative group in later years. It's worth checking when/how the norming is done. I am about to do that as we are doing to use it again this spring on seniors, and have tentatively decided to use it every two years. And yes, I can relate to the AAAUUUGGG .... but I find the MFT a god reality check if used wisely.
========================== John W. Kulig Professor of Psychology Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 ==================================================================== Religion without science is blind; science without religion is lame - A. Einstein ==================================================================== ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Froman" <rfro...@jbu.edu> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:45:36 PM Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH) I agree with Marc’s point about the pre-test and I would also say that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea if everyone started using the MFT in this way because that would tend to really skew the normative sample for seniors (unless ETS provides a way for you to take the test while excluding your data from the norms). Rick Rick Froman rfro...@jbu.edu From: Marc Carter [mailto:marc.car...@bakeru.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH) I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap and thorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test, though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial number of students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Even an AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retained knowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychology as seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in your program. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics for the psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups; it has six "Assessment Indicators" that will tell you about strengths and weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricular changes. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts & Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH) Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis skills, information literacy, and quality of writing. If your institution has an assessment for these learning outcomes in the General Education curriculum, you could try to get the average scores for students in Gen Ed entering the psychology major and use those scores as the baseline. Then create a meaningful assessment of these skills with an embedded assignment in the capstone course to determine what changes occur during completion of the major coursework. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 – 5751 Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 csta...@uwf.edu CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Marte Fallshore < ma...@cwu.edu > wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte ************************************************ Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) ************************************************ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: csta...@uwf.edu . To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13144.1572ed60024e708cf21c4c6f19e7d550&n=T&l=tips&o=871 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-871-13144.1572ed60024e708cf21c4c6f19e7d...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: marc.car...@bakeru.edu . 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