1999-2000 Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Report

Department of Environmental and Plant Biology December 6, 2000

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM 1. Overview of outcome assessment procedures. A. Learning Objectives and Goals. The principal learning objectives and goals of the undergraduate program are as follows: a. Students completing a BS or BA program in the department will receive broad training in plant biology and obtain the necessary skills and knowledge to pursue a career in this field. b. Our goal is that every graduate who plans to pursue a graduate education be accepted in an appropriate graduate program. For graduates seeking employment, our goal is that they be competitive in the job market in their chosen careers. B. Assessment Procedures. The objectives and goals of the undergraduate program are assessed as follows: a. Every major in the department takes an entrance examination and an exit examination, prepared by the departmental faculty, designed to test basic knowledge of plant biology. The entrance exam is given to all students enrolled in PBIO 110, the first course taken by our majors. Exit examinations are given as part of an exit interview during the quarter the student graduates. Scores for the examinations are recorded by student identification numbers, permitting a comparison of the results of the two exams. b. Students are given an exit interview during the quarter in which they will graduate. In the interview, they are asked to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of our program and offer suggestions for improvement. c. We maintain contact with our graduates through an annual departmental newsletter, which provides a mechanism for long-term assessment of career success. We are in the process of developing a more systematic means of tracking the career paths of our alumni. 2. Synopsis of the quality of outcomes. The entrance examinations were first given in fall quarter, 1995. The first exit examinations had to await the passage of this cohort of students through the program in 1998, and only 8 students have taken it to date. The median entrance score for these students was 10.5/30 (35.0%), and the median exit score was 19/30 (63.3%). Most of the frequently missed questions on the exit exam concern material taught in PBIO 110 or 111 with little or no reinforcement in subsequent courses.

In the exit interviews conducted in 1999 and 2000, most students expressed a preference for courses that include fieldwork, teach material of an applied or practical nature, and/or provide hands-on experience with plants. These preferences were expressed as both

1 strengths and weaknesses of our curriculum; that is, the students had a very favorable view of the existing field courses but wished that a greater proportion of their coursework had involved active, experiential learning.

Students particularly valued the opportunities to participate in independent research through PBIO 404 (a requirement in most of our major tracks) and to gain practical experience in greenhouse techniques through a program that was instituted in 1998 as a result of the 1997 exit interviews.

Students expressed appreciation for the personal attention they received from faculty and the friendliness of the interactions between faculty and students. Many of them also spoke highly of our efforts to provide students with timely information about jobs and internships via e-mail. Other aspects of our programs that won high marks in the exit interviews were the quality of the facilities (particularly the student computer lab), good advising, good selection of courses, and the excellence of the teaching by specific faculty.

In exit interviews, students offered various suggestions for improvement of our programs. The most frequent suggestion was that we provide more experiential learning (e.g., field courses, service projects) and more courses of an applied nature, although the same students felt that we were already doing well in this regard. Some suggested that students should be introduced to geographical skills (GPS, GIS), and that we should offer a course in plant conservation biology. One student asked that we do more to inform students about the opportunities for practical experience through PACE positions within the department.

Career plans of our most recent graduates vary. One graduate is taking over an existing nursery and landscaping business in central Ohio. One entered the Peace Corps. Two took internships with The Nature Conservancy, one in Oregon and one in Missouri. Another took an internship working with rare plants at a biological station in Virginia. A few either went directly to graduate school or are now applying to graduate schools. One entered our masters program, and another entered a doctoral program at Cornell University, where she was recently awarded a 3-year NSF fellowship.

Anecdotal information about students who graduated between 1996 and 1998 is encouraging. One is completing her masters degree in botany at Arizona State University and has lined up a job at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Another is the botanist at the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus. Others are enrolled in graduate programs at Miami University, University of Toronto, and University of Washington.

3. Summary of changes to procedures and/or curriculum based on assessment activities. Based in part on the results of the exit examinations and student comments in exit interviews, the department is exploring a fundamental reworking of the introductory course sequence taken by all of our majors. This process is still in its early stages, but there is enthusiasm for reorganizing the material taught in PBIO 110 and 111 around a set of lab activities that teach concepts in a more experiential way than is the case now.

2 Currently, there is far too much factual information packed into PBIO 111, much of which the students forget soon after taking the final (this is apparent from the exit examinations). By reducing the amount of information, emphasizing the more important concepts, and teaching the concepts in a more experiential way, we hope to improve long-term retention of the fundamentals.

In part responding to student demand for more field courses, Drs. Ballard and Vis have developed an innovative series of courses called Global Studies in Field Biology. Over the next two years, classes will go to Bolivia, Hawaii, French Guiana, and Brazil to study the flora and participate in botanical research projects. This is one of very few programs nationally that combine study abroad with undergraduate participation in faculty research.

Other issues raised in exit interviews are also being addressed. The prerequisite for the undergraduate research course (PBIO 404) is being reduced from 24 to 17 credit hours of departmental coursework so that students can begin research earlier. This will permit students to engage in more research projects or longer-term projects before graduating. Using e-mail and announcements in class, we will be sure that all of our majors are aware of PACE opportunities in the department. We cannot currently offer a plant conservation biology courses, but we are hoping to hire two additional ecologists in the next two years, one of whom should be able to develop such a course.

4. Changes in assessment goals resulting from assessment. We see no need to change the goals of assessment, but we have undertaken an improvement on one component of the present assessment mechanism. In order that we may track the career paths of our graduates more systematically and effectively, we are developing a questionnaire to be sent to alumni who graduated in the past ten years. In addition to asking about the employment history of our alumni since graduation, the survey will request comments on the strengths and weaknesses of our program. This information will complement the exit interviews in that graduates’ perspectives on our program may change with time.

GRADUATE PROGRAM 1. Overview of outcome assessment procedures. A. Learning Objectives and Goals. The principal learning objectives and goals of the graduate program are as follows: a. Students will acquire a broad knowledge about plant biology as a whole and an intensive background in at least one specialty area. b. Students will develop the skills necessary to identify a problem of interest, design a research project to address it, collect and analyze relevant data, and interpret the results. c. Students will learn to communicate research results and other scientific material clearly, both orally and in writing. d. Students will develop the teaching skills necessary to instruct undergraduates.

3 e. Our goal is that all graduates be competitive in the job market in their chosen careers, and that those (M.S. graduates) who seek additional training be accepted into an appropriate doctoral program.

B. Assessment Procedures. a. Factual knowledge: knowledge of plant biology is assessed through comprehensive examinations and grades in graduate level courses. b. Research skills: The student must plan and implement an independent research project for the thesis or dissertation. A research proposal must be approved by the student’s committee. The committee reviews the student’s research progress periodically and must approve the completed thesis or dissertation. A few students opt for the non-thesis M.S. track, which requires more coursework; these students are required to complete a research project but do not prepare a formal thesis. c. Communication skills: At least once per year, the student must present an hour-long scientific talk, either in a seminar course (e.g., PBIO 691) or by presenting his/her thesis research in the departmental colloquium series. The latter is required in the student’s final year and provides an opportunity for the entire faculty to assess the student’s oral communication skills. The thesis offers an outstanding opportunity to assess the student’s ability to communicate scientific material in writing. Written papers and oral presentations are also required in many graduate courses in the department. d. Teaching skills: All graduate students must serve as a lab instructor in a departmental course during at least two quarters; most students do so every quarter. At the end of each quarter, the lab instructors are evaluated by their students by means of both written and computer-scored evaluation forms similar to those used by the faculty. e. Success after graduation: We maintain contact with our graduates through an annual departmental newsletter, which provides a mechanism for long-term assessment of career success. We are in the process of developing a more systematic means of tracking the career paths of our alumni.

2. Synopsis of quality of outcomes. The students who completed their M.S. (9) and Ph.D. (4) degrees in 1999 and 2000 successfully completed their graduate coursework and passed their comprehensive examinations. All but two of them (who opted for the non-thesis M.S. track) completed and defended a thesis or dissertation and presented a public research seminar. The quality of the theses, dissertations, and seminars was generally excellent.

Two good measures of the quality of graduate student research are publications and grants. During the 1999 and 2000 calendar years, graduate students in Environmental and Plant Biology authored 23 peer-reviewed research publications (14 of them this year). During this same period, the graduate students in this department received 39 external grants and 14 internal grants. Although most of these were small (typically $500 - $1000), three students received $6,000 Student Enhancement Awards from the Ohio University Council for Research. Our students’ outstanding record of procuring grants

4 and publishing their research is indicative of both the quality of their research and their ability to communicate their grant proposals and research results effectively. Many of our students also present their research orally at state and national meetings, and two of them won awards in 1999 for presenting the best student paper at a national or regional conference.

Student evaluations of the graduate teaching assistants in our courses have been very positive. In fall, quarter 2000, the mean score for “overall rating of the TA” was 4.21 on a five-point scale, and only one TA received a score below 3.0. The mean scores for “overall rating of the TA” during the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 academic years were remarkably consistent, ranging from 4.24 to 4.32.

Of the students who completed doctorates, one took a faculty position at University of Missouri, one is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, and two (a couple) took one-year positions at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and are currently seeking permanent positions. Of those who completed masters degrees, one entered the doctoral program in Biological Sciences at Ohio University, two are pursuing doctorates at other schools (University of Alberta, University of Florida), one took a position with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, one is on the staff of the New York Botanical Garden, one is working for an environmental consulting firm, one is teaching high school, one is teaching at a community college, and the employment of the other is unknown.

3. Summary of changes to procedures and/or curriculum based on assessment activities. The graduate curriculum is adjusted regularly in response to student demand and the expectations of employers. For example, an experimental course on molecular systematics was offered for the first time in 1999. The response from the students who took it was enthusiastic, and the course will be offered again in 2001 before it is developed as a permanent course. We recently hired a new faculty member in plant development, who is preparing a course on developmental plant physiology. We are currently searching for a new faculty member in ecosystem ecology. Molecular systematics, developmental physiology, and ecosystem ecology are all “hot” areas of biology. By hiring faculty and developing new courses in these areas, we are improving the employment prospects of our graduates.

4. Changes in assessment goals resulting from assessment. We need to develop a more systematic method of tracking the career paths of the alumni of our graduate program, e.g., a questionnaire such as being developed for alumni of the undergraduate program. This issue will be examined by the Graduate Committee during the 2001 calendar year.

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