Assessment Plans
Student Affairs
Compiled by Lori E. Varlotta,
Vice President for Student Affairs
In October 2005, the Vice President of Student Affairs launched a new assessment initiative within the Division. From Fall 2005 forward, she expected all departments to augment their current program improvement plans with student learning outcomes. Presently, each Student Affairs Director is charged with identifying and measuring at least one outcome related to student learning.
The following pages detail each department’s emerging assessment plan.
If you have general comments about the document, please send them to . If you have specific questions about the programs associated with a certain area, please contact the Director identified as point person for that particular department.
Academic Advising Center
As of July 2007
Mission Statement
Note: Departmental mission must be directly aligned with those of the University and the Division. This statement should include approximately 3-5 sentences that identifies the name of the department, its primary functions, modes of delivery and target audience.
Mission: The Academic Advising Center offers new student orientation, mandatory freshman advising, and advising on general education and graduation requirements for all students. The Center engages students in a developmental process that helps clarify and implement individual educational plans consistent with their skills, interests, and values. Through individual appointments, group advising sessions, and presentations help students understand the university’s academic requirements as well as its policies and procedures. As a result, students are better prepared to take responsibility for their education and persist towards a timely graduation.
Planning Goals
Note: Planning Goals are broad statements that describe the overarching, long-range intentions of an administrative unit. Goals are used primarily for general planning, as the starting point for the development and refinement of program objectives or student learning outcomes. (UCF Administrative Handbook, University of Central Florida).
Goal 1: Help students take responsibility for their education and persist towards a timely graduation.
Goal 2: Contribute to increasing freshman to sophomore retention rates of Sacramento State students.
Program Objective or Student Learning Outcomes
Note: The Objectives or Outcomes can be one of two types: program objectives or student learning outcomes. The former are related to program improvement around issues like timeliness, efficiency and participant satisfaction. The latter addresses what a student learns or how a student changes by participating in the program or utilizing the service. Both program objectives and student learning outcomes are measurable statements that provide evidence as to how well you are reaching your goals.
Student Learning Outcome: After participating in a comprehensive freshman or transfer orientation program, eighty-five percent of incoming students will understand General Education requirements and University resources.
Rationale: The newly implemented mandatory orientation policy will enable more students to gain a sense of belonging to the University and derive benefits from the information provided. A variety of modalities will be implemented to ensure that students have access to the University orientation program.
Possible Measures
Note: Measures describe the methodology and timeframe for data collection. Measures also should identify the population being surveyed and/or tested.
Develop an Orientation Survey of new students (pre/post test or post test only) to immediately assess the impact of orientation (through both online and traditional sessions) on students’ knowledge and understanding of academic requirements and resources.
Actual Measures
Note: (If different from possible measures): Specify the data collection timeframe, population and methodology. Provide materials such as survey instruments, check lists, focus group protocols, etc. in an appendix.
The data were collected at summer orientation (11 freshman sessions in June and July) to measure learning outcomes. Transfer data were collected in June via scantrons to measure satisfaction with orientation.
Data were collected via an online survey at the end of orientation before the students registered for classes. A random sample pre-test was conducted via pencil/paper. Transfer satisfaction data were collected via scantron forms.
Results
Note: Results include a brief narrative of findings, and/or essential tables or graphs. The results should indicate the extent to which the program objective or student learning outcome was met.
Data collected right after the point-of-contact showed that students learned, for the most part, the information we had presented. See Attachment D1 for the pre-test and post-test survey results.
Conclusions
Note: The conclusion should summarize briefly the collection and analyses of data. It also should “close the loop” by identifying what decisions and/or program modifications were made on the basis of these analyses.
The data were analyzed last fall and minor changes were made to the survey. The post-test will be given online via StudentVoice.
The data showed that some areas need to be emphasized more during the orientation sessions. For instance, less than sixty percent of orientation attendees could identify correctly the three academic areas that constitute the bachelorette degree. Because of this low correct response rate, future Orientation Leaders will participate in a two-day freshman program instead of the one day training currently in place.
After the data was collected in Summer 2006, we noticed a very high correct response rate on pre-test questions. Though we saw an increase in knowledge on the post-test, it wasn’t as dramatic as we thought it would be. Later the Orientation Coordinator discovered that some of the Orientation Leaders had coached orientation attendees on the pre-test, because they thought low response rates would reflect poorly on their performance as a leader. Understanding the leaders’ misguided fear helped us better inform them about pre and post test methodology we are duplicating the data collection this year (2007) to see if we get different pre-test results.
Program Objective: All freshmen will participate in a three-phase comprehensive, proactive advising and major/career exploration program by spring 2007.
Rationale: This program will increase student confidence in their academic plan and enable them to make informed course selections and major/career decisions.
Possible Measures
All 2006-2007 advising appointments and sessions will be tracked through a database. Baseline data will be collected to measure the level of participation.
Actual Measures
The data were collected via the Academic Advising sign-in database. Also the Freshman Advisor tracked appointments in Microsoft Outlook and double-checked it with the sign-in system.
Results
Of the 2006 freshmen who were to participate in the phase 2 Freshman Advising Program, during Fall ’06 992 students were seen by peer mentors. The remaining 1014 students were scheduled for appointments in Academic Advising. Of the 1014 students scheduled, 856 were seen in the office. Of the 158 not seen, 33 withdrew from the university, 13 were disenrolled, and 41 had no holds placed because they received major advising through their academic departments. At the end of fall semester (minus the withdrawals, disenrolled, and major advising) the Freshman Advising Program saw 96.3% of participating freshmen.
For Spring 2007 (Phase III), of the 1888 freshmen scheduled for appointments, the Freshman Advising Program saw 1715. Of the 173 not seen, 30 withdrew, 2 were disenrolled, and 36 had no holds placed because they received major advising through their academic departments. At the end of spring semester (minus the withdrawals, disenrolled, and major advising) the Freshman Advising Program saw 94.2% of participating freshmen. See Attachment D2 for complete details.
Conclusions
To keep the newly implemented freshmen advising program afloat we need at least two permanent academic advisors. Throughout the 2006-07 academic year we were able to secure- on a temporary basis- two EOP advisors who worked with the academic advising center on a one year appointment. To meet the basic expectations of the program these positions must be retained on a permanent basis.
Program Objective: By December 2006, develop an instrument that measures the impact of proactive advising on freshmen continuation rates.
Rationale: This freshmen advising program should increase first to second year continuation rates. Ultimately, it should also increase graduation rates, specifically impacting students’ time to degree.
Possible Measures
Have 70 percent of students participate in a survey that measures the impact of the advising program and how it affected their confidence in selecting a major and making informed decisions.
Actual Measures
Data was collected via StudentVoice and through a comprehensive online survey sent to all students via SacNotes.
Results
Two forms of data were collected for the Freshman Advising Program. Immediate (point-of-contact) responses were collected via PDAs and a web-based follow-up survey was emailed to the freshmen. We received 77% response rate from the point-of-contact surveys. We had only 82 responses to the web-based survey.
The advisors each had a PDA with the Freshman Advising Program survey loaded on it. After each advising session the freshmen completed the survey. There were 1327 responses collected throughout the Phase III advising sessions. The survey included questions to evaluate Phase II as well. The data indicate that the freshmen overwhelmingly found the advising sessions helpful and useful, particularly with major advising and course selection (98% very to somewhat helpful). Although most of the advisors were not career counselors, students still felt that the advising they received on possible careers was helpful (88% very to somewhat helpful). A complete summary of the survey results are in Attachment D3 and D4.
Conclusions
We discussed preliminary survey results at length in staff meetings (including faculty/staff meetings, professional staff meetings, and joint meetings with the Career Center) starting the first part of May 2007. From the data, the program was a huge success. Everyone is anxious to see retention numbers to see if this may have contributed to students returning for a second year. Basically, the data collected was to justify how useful and helpful the program was to the students. We are already developing new surveys for next fall to measure areas that were not examined this year. Also, starting in Phase II, students will be surveyed at the point-of-contact after each advising session.
There are going to be some changes made to the program in Phases II and III not necessarily pointed out from the data. We are in the process of creating a home-grown career/advising assessment instrument targeted for Sac State freshmen. We found the Choices instrument not that useful for this venue. We are also going to switch the career component to Phase III. Students were not ready to discuss career options six weeks into their first semester. Basic career exploration will be discussed with students who are ready, and will be included in the talking points for the advisors to cover if relevant in Phase II. A more complete year-end report will be written in detail by the end of summer evaluating all aspects of the Freshman Advising Program.
Program Objective: Increase the retention of students who have been reinstated as Undeclared majors by five percent. Eighty-five percent of these students indicate via survey that they received comprehensive advising and have achieved good academic standing by the following semester after reinstatement, and that the advising they received assisted them in staying at the University.
Rationale: Students reinstated as Undeclared majors to the University will receive more mandatory proactive advising starting Fall 2006.
Possible Measures
Measure: Track through database and advising sessions. Grades will be analyzed by the end of the following semester after reinstatement.
Measure: Have students participate in focus groups to discuss the impact of the advising sessions.
Measure: Administer exit survey to students who do not return.
Actual Measures
Grade lists will be run to see academic progress of students reinstated as Undeclared students at the end of fall and spring semesters.
Results
The Academic Advising Center compared Fall 2005 reinstatements to Fall 2006 reinstatements to measure an increase in retention. The only data collected was retention rates.
In Fall 2005 Academic Advising reinstated 68 Undeclared students. As of Summer 2006, 29 students were still enrolled and in good standing, academic probation, continued probation, or subject to academic review. In total, 42 percent of the Fall 2005 reinstatements were enrolled after one year. In Fall 2006 Academic Advising reinstated 94 Undeclared students. As of Summer 2007, 50 students were still enrolled and in good standing, academic probation, continued probation, or subject to academic review. In total, 53 percent of the Fall 2006 reinstated students are still registered and in better academic standing than before. This is an 11 percent increase in retention.
Conclusions
This objective received the least amount of attention because of the implementation of the Freshman Advising Program. The academic advisor responsible for this population met with reinstated students regularly but there was not an effective tracking system in place. Academic Advising is implementing a new scheduling/tracking system for Fall 2007 that will address this dilemma. No surveys were given and no focus groups were planned for 2006-07. This objective is being carried over to the 2007-08 academic year.
Questions regarding the programs and outcomes delineated in this section should be addressed to Beth Merritt Miller, Academic Advising. (916) 278-6231. .
Attachment D1
1. What are the three areas of classes that make up an undergraduate degree at Sac State?Pre-test / Post-test / % Change
Count / Percent / Count / Percent
A. / Major, Minor, GE / 131 / 39.34% / 445 / 22.72% / -16.62%
B. / Elective, GE & Major / 121 / 36.34% / 1091 / 55.69% / 19.36%
C. / Upper Division, Lower Division, Elective / 55 / 16.52% / 353 / 18.02% / 1.50%
D. / None of the above / 26 / 7.81% / 70 / 3.57% / -4.23%
Total / 333 / 100.00% / 1959 / 100.00% / 0.00%
2. What is the minimum number of required units to graduate?
Pre-test / Post-test / % Change
Count / Percent / Count / Percent
A. / 135 / 42 / 12.54% / 19 / 0.97% / -11.57%
B. / 120 / 252 / 75.22% / 1917 / 97.86% / 22.63%
C. / 60 / 33 / 9.85% / 7 / 0.36% / -9.49%
D. / 51 / 8 / 2.39% / 16 / 0.82% / -1.57%
Total / 335 / 100.00% / 1959 / 100.00% / 0.00%
3. How many classes would you have to take each semester to graduate in 4 years, if each course is 3 units?
Pre-test / Post-test / % Change
Count / Percent / Count / Percent
A. / 3 / 14 / 4.18% / 28 / 1.43% / -2.75%
B. / 4 / 120 / 35.82% / 348 / 17.82% / -18.00%
C. / 5 / 144 / 42.99% / 1405 / 71.94% / 28.96%
D. / 6 / 57 / 17.01% / 172 / 8.81% / -8.21%