Appendix C13

Middle States Outcomes Assessment 1999

Department or Program: History

Goals

General Goal:

Development of historical mindedness, or historical awareness, in its majors.

1. Expansion of historical knowledge and understanding of historical significance.

2. Movement from a parochial(ethnocentric) to a cosmopolitan (global) world view.

3. Expansion ion of understanding of historical causation and consequences.

4. Development of sensitivity to multiplicity (of perspectives, interpretations, causation).

5. Development of awareness of knowledge as a construction and, therefore of historical knowledge as a reconstruction.

G.C.P. Correlation

The primary mission should provide the student knowledge to reflect on the importance of understanding historical background to contemporary problems.

Through courses students come to understand their own identities are products of historical experience.

Students develop a mature ability to assess their own culture.

Socioethical understanding/cultural experiences/interconnectedness of civilizations – through department courses.

Reading/Writing (all goals)- reading and writing assignments

Means of Assessment

Ongoing assessment in courses; Standardized test: Historical Awareness Test (Local) Pre/post

Outcomes

For goal #1

Test Question IA. Progression from 8 to 9. One out of ten is a statistically significant improvement in basic knowledge. For the subscore on "presentism," entry students averaged 2.7 out of 10; Exit students averaged 2.9 out of 10. "We do not seem to have changed students' tendencies to think primarily of modern events as having the most effect on human life.

Test question IB . Entry students averaged 7.7 of 10 while Exit students averaged 8. 1. Indicates minimal improvement of students to put historical events in chronological order.

For goal #2

Test Question # ELL Entry students averaged 1.6 of 10 while Exit students averaged 2.4. Seems to indicate improvement in having a global versus an ethnocentric worldview.

Test Question # IIB. With 0 the best possible score, entry students averaged -3.2 while Exit students averaged -2.4. Seems to indicate improvement in expansion of students' world perspective on history.

For goals 1, 3, 4, & 5

Test Question III.

Entry students averaged 2.9 ; Exit students averaged 3.7. There seems to be some improvement in sense of historical significance and understanding of cause-effect relationships.

Uses

We have many ideas about improving the tests that we administer. Beyond that, we will be thinking about how we can make our students less present-minded. Our new global curriculum, once fully implemented, will have some impact on presentism and considerable impact on what remain of ethnocentrism among our students. Other course and curriculum changes.