Assessment measures used in Paralegal Department.

This is our third assessment report. The four assessment methods we used are:

• Internships, especially the supervising attorney’s evaluations

• Employer surveys and ratings

• Graduate Surveys and ratings

• Senior exit surveys

The department meets to review the results of our assessments. This is done at department meetings after we have compiled the results.  We also share these surveys with the Paralegal Advisory Board, composed of MSUM faculty and community, professional, and student representatives. From those discussions, curriculum decisions are made which are responsive to the assessment measures.

Internships

All paralegal majors are required to complete an internship of at least 4, but not more than 12 credits, with one credit being the equivalent of 40 hours of work at the internship site under the supervision of an attorney.

The department and the paralegal students consider the internship to be one of the most important opportunities to assess each student’s development and competency following completion of the majority of the paralegal curriculum. We also consider it an excellent way to assess the effectiveness of our curriculum. 

The student’s performance is assessed by the supervising attorney (or paralegal), using an evaluation form provided by the faculty internship coordinator upon completion of the internship.  Attached is a composite of the results from Summer 2001 through Summer 2003. (Exhibit A). [PDF]

The results continue to reaffirm our belief in the importance of the internships. They also tell us we are doing a good job of preparing our students for the experience. We also view the internships as an effective device to reach out to the professionals in the communities where our internship sites are located and an effective tool to keep our university and major visible in those various communities.

Employer Surveys

The department periodically sends surveys to employers of our graduates in which they are asked to assess the effectiveness of our curriculum in preparing students for employment.  Although we do have some results from our employer surveys, our department didn’t have adequate procedures in place to assure that the surveys were always sent out and then tracked. The department has those procedures in place now. Included are the composite results for the limited surveying we did from Summer 2001 through Summer 2003. (Exhibit B). [PDF]

The responses from these employers are certainly encouraging. It affirms our belief that our faculty and curriculum is right on track.

Graduate Surveys

The department also periodically surveys its recent graduates, asking for their own assessment of their level of preparedness. The composite results for the Summer 2001 through Summer 2003 are included with this report. (Exhibit C). [PDF]

This is probably our best opportunity to obtain the perspectives of the graduates after they’ve been out long enough to judge their proficiency. It is also a good way to learn more about the different ways paralegals are utilized in the job market. That information has been helpful to the department and Advisory Board in the discussions on changes in our curriculum.

Senior Exit Surveys

Every student is asked to complete a survey just prior to their graduation.  The composite results for Summer 2001 through Summer 2003 are included. (Exhibit D). [PDF]

This assessment is more indirect than the other measures. It asks for an assessment before the student is in the best position to make a full assessment – after being in the job market.  The survey is probably more a measure of the student’s confidence level and the student’s perception of their MSUM academic experience but our department still considers the information worthwhile and helpful to the department.

Actions taken as result of assessment

The department has made several changes in our curriculum based on these surveys after extensive consultation and discussion with our Advisory Board.

• Elimination of Public Interest track/area of emphasis because of the lack of interest of students probably in large part due to the cutbacks in funding for legal-aid type programs.

• Transfer out of some of the public benefits courses into other tracks or areas of emphasis and creation of new courses i.e. Elder Law – PARA 416 is now one of the electives listed in the Real Estate and Probate track.

• Integration of more research and writing projects into courses across our curriculum.

• Development of a Commercial Law track/area of emphasis. Graduates have consistently indicated there are job opportunities in the business/commercial field and our department needed to emphasize that more. Our Advisory Board also strongly suggested this was an area of job opportunities and we needed to do more to offer our students the classes that would enhance their prospects for those jobs.

• Service learning component incorporated into our Elder Law course which offers students practical hands-on experience and also serves as a community outreach tool to keep our program visible in the community in a positive way.

• Revamped Civil Procedure and Methods of Litigation into Civil Procedure I and Civil Procedure II with the same instructor so duplication of lectures, projects, etc. is avoided.

• A change in our curriculum as to the courses that are required for all students. Based on our assessment surveys and discussions with our Advisory Board, it became clear to us that all students should take Civil Procedure I, Fundamentals of Accounting (Acct 130) and Business Entities & Property (Acct 306) and we changed our core requirements to include those courses.

Our department, along with our Advisory Board, seriously considers the responses from all our assessment tools in determining curriculum revision. We feel the revisions we made to the curriculum during this time period were responsive to the survey results, our Advisory Board recommendations, and our faculty’s comments and observations. We feel we have given our students the maximum flexibility to fulfill the “Area of Emphasis” requirements, especially. Perhaps too much so – given the current “push” for maximum credit hour production and setting credit-hour goals for departments and colleges. We may have “shot ourselves in the foot” by allowing our students too many choices of courses to fulfill the credit requirements for an “Area of Emphasis”. That is something we’ll have to address – whether to reduce other departments’ courses in our curriculum in order to bolster the enrollment in our PARA courses.  While the department would not favor sacrificing a good curriculum strictly for “numbers” reasons, the department also recognizes the necessity to be productive and efficient.

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