Assessment of General Education Requirement

I.A. Writing for a Liberal Education

 

 


Learning Goals
 Students who successfully complete this General Education requirement should fulfill the “Maryland Chief Academic Officers’ Standards for a ‘C’ Paper in Freshman Composition” in terms of content, organization, style/expression, and content/mechanics. Specifically, such students should be able to write papers with the following characteristics:

  1. The paper has a recognizable purpose or controlling idea.
  2. The paper shows evidence that the source texts were analyzed and that those readings shaped the student’s writing.
  3. Supporting material is organized appropriately and demonstrates some depth of discussion.
  4. The paper demonstrates a competent command of phrasing and word choice.
  5. Sentences are, for the most part, grammatically correct.

Assessment Strategy
 Faculty assess these goals by evaluating samples of student papers using a common rubric. A score of 3 on a 5-point scale is considered minimally acceptable for college-level proficiency. 

Recent Assessment Findings
The faculty’s goal is that at least 90% of student papers are minimally acceptable for college-level proficiency. (A higher percentage would be an inappropriate target, as some students fail the course—and these would not be expected to demonstrate proficiency—and because some students who have difficulty on the particular assignment being evaluated demonstrate proficiency on other assignments.)

The faculty have found that 95% of evaluated papers have scored a 3 or above in terms of evidence of controlling purpose, 92% have scored a 3 or above in terms of engagement with the text, 89% have scored a 3 or above in terms of style and command of sentence-level conventions; and 75% have scored a 3 or above in terms of organization and development. Altogether, 89% of evaluated papers have scored a total of 15 or above on the five criteria.  

How the Results Are Being Used
The faculty have concluded that these results demonstrate college-level proficiency in content (maintaining an overall focus and using a variety of material to develop and explain that focus) and expression (style and command of sentence-level conventions). In Fall 2004, the director of Towson’s freshman composition program will work with the faculty to revise the departmental syllabus to increase attention to writing organization and will revise the rubric to reflect university standards more closely. In Spring 2005, graduate students enrolled in Towson’s “Assessing and Evaluating Writing” course will conduct a more extensive assessment of freshman writing skills. The results of that assessment will be used to redesign the Writing for a Liberal Education curriculum.

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    Last updated: 4.1.05

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