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Economics Department
Assessment Report
January 2005

 

The Economics Department expects its majors to:

  1. Exhibit knowledge of basic economics

  2. Communicate effectively in writing and speech

  3. Possess basic quantitative skills

  4. Apply analytical skills within the field of economics using theoretical, communication and quantitative tools acquired at the university

Evaluation of students’ skills and abilities is based on the senior research seminar and includes the following six general areas:

  1. Basic knowledge of economics

  2. Writing

  3. Quantitative skills

  4. Analytical skills

  5. Communication, oral and written

  6. Overall evaluation 

Assessment is done by evaluating a term paper written for the Economics Senior Seminar and students’ participation in the Academic Conference. The Assessment form and results for the Spring, 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2004 [PDF] are attached. The results for 2002 included only three students and hence are not included. The ratings range from 1 to 5, with 1 being poor and five excellent.

Assessment results are encouraging, in 2004 the overall average is 4.4. Our assessment points to the following weaknesses:

  1. Some students work did not include sufficient bibliography.

  2. The appropriate theory was, on occasion, not used for the problem at hand. Also, the level of theory used was occasionally too elementary.

  3. In addition, in a couple of cases, the theoretical arguments were not clearly expressed.

  4. While generally, students used the appropriate hypotheses and specified the appropriate regression equation, some had problems interpreting their results.

There are four significant changes in the assessment results in relation to 2003.

  1. There was a smaller spread in the results in the written section of the assessment. This year, students had to present a draft of their paper a month before the final draft was due for comments and suggestions. This draft was graded.

  2. The use of relevant bibliography continues to be a problem, students do not always include sufficient papers or prior research.

  3. The analytical level of the student’s research suffered. It is not clear why.

  4. Quantitative Skills remain satisfactory, but could improve.

Some of the weakness identified may not be easy to strengthen. For instance, most students take the senior seminar the semester they graduate. Hence, many are concerned about submitting resumes and interviewing and are not willing to spend more time improving their paper or presentation. Further, it is not clear what curricular changes can be made to address these weaknesses.

It is important to point out, however, that former students who have taken this course suggest it was one of the most valuable experiences in college as it forced them to chose a topic, research it, and present it both in writing and orally.

Our assessment plan is focused on how well our majors are performing; as such it does not allow us to assess our lower level courses where many of our students are not economics majors. It particular, with our current assessment plan we can not measure the effectiveness of lower level courses to develop students’ knowledge of economics and their ability to apply such knowledge. Nor can we measure whether our lower level courses contribute to critical thinking or to instilling interest in economics. Yet, conversations among the economics faculty and faculty from other departments provide significant anecdotal evidence that much could be done to improve in these areas.   

While the department should consider adding some components to our assessment plan to be able to measure the some of the above mentioned issues we can not commit to pursuing changes with current resources. We consider that some reassignment time is needed to do the appropriate research before proposing any additions to the assessment plan.  


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