Summary of Year 3 for the Teagle Foundation Study: Measuring Intellectual Development and Civic Engagement Through Value-Added Assessment

Home , Luther College (Iowa), Wittenberg University

Summary of Year 3 for the Teagle Foundation Study: Measuring Intellectual Development and Civic Engagement through Value-Added Assessment

MALLA Consortium of Alma College, Augustana College, Gustavus Adolphus College, Illinois Wesleyan University, Luther College, and Wittenberg University

Michael Nolan Principal Researcher

August 1, 2008

While it has not been as quiet a year for the Teagle Study as it is each week in Lake Wobegon, it has been quieter than the first two years when we could share detailed statistical data and correlations between national instruments and faculty members’ ratings of student work. The difference is partly because of the nature of the third area of student growth we are exploring, civic engagement, and partly because our decision to extend our work to a fourth year means the consortium faculty will not meet until the fall, rather than in early summer, as has been our custom. In the pages that follow we offer a recap of the consortium’s work for 2007-2008 and look ahead to year four and the completion of the study.

Assessing Civic Engagement In our original application for funding we promised to explore writing, critical thinking, and civic engagement, three areas of student learning and growth that we felt were central to a strong liberal- arts education. While all the consortium schools respect the life of the mind and the value of exploration and learning for their own sake, we also hope that our students will use the insights gained from liberal study seek ways to better the world. We hope that we can encourage students to be committed to addressing the inequities and evil still so present in the world.

At the summer 2006 meeting at Luther College and the fall 2006 meeting at Gustavus Adolphus College, faculty and student activities staff met to explore ways to assessment students’ civic engagement and our schools’ role in fostering it. They included Mark Bjelland (Gustavus Adolphus), Frank Boyd (IWU), Beckett Broh (Wittenberg), Jon Christy (Luther), Kristen Collier (Wittenberg), Ann Hall (Alma), Ellen Hay (Augustana), Frances Lichtman (Alma), Craig Mosher (Luther), and Jim Sikora (Illinois Wesleyan University.) For the last year and a half, Mosher has served as the faculty leader for the project bringing to his work great energy and good humor.

Early in their work, the faculty and staff planners crafted a broad definition of civic engagement:

Civic Engagement is active and voluntary participation in, and/or support of, activities whose purpose is to improve the quality of community life. ‘Voluntary’ may include modest remuneration or expense reimbursement. 2

This definition includes action by people at different places in the political spectrum. It allows for varied motivations for becoming civically engaged. It requires, however, action of some kind in the world, not simply the expression of well-intentioned opinions or beliefs. The definition allows for some modest pay, acknowledging that someone involved in the Peace Corp or Teach for America is civically engaged even though he or she receives compensation. While this definition is not perfect—how do we define someone who has volunteered for the military? Someone who works as a social worker in a poor neighborhood?—it offered sufficient focus for continued work.

The faculty and student affairs staff sought to better understand civic engagement by exploring it in terms of 1) student motivation for becoming civically engaged and 2) the elements of the college and university that foster such interest. They elected to use the following instruments and approaches to gather data on these areas:

1. Two national surveys—the CSS (College Student Survey), given to seniors in 2007-2008, to gather information about student attitudes and the impact of the college or university, and the HEDS Alumni Survey, administered on-line to alumni five and ten years after graduation to assess graduates’ civic engagement and by implication the institutional impact. The faculty created supplemental questions for both surveys that asked students and alumni about specific activities and actions in which they had taken part. (See Appendices 1 and 2 for the supplemental questions).

2. Focus groups—Last winter and spring, seniors who had entered each institution as first-year students in 2004 were invited to take part in one of three focus groups, each comprised of 8-12 students. Students were randomly selection for invitation, with each school seeking a representative sample of students. The focus group questions were crafted to determine students’ sense of what civic engagement entails, civic engagement activities pursued in college, motivation for volunteer and service work, and the impact of the college or university on their civic engagement. The focus group transcripts and notes were to be analyzed by an independent researcher who would identify common themes as well as look for differences between institutions. (See Appendix 3 for the focus group script and questions)

3. An Institutional Profile—This instrument was created by the consortium to determine the college and university’s commitment to civic engagement, its curricular and extracurricular opportunities, policies in support of service and engagement, etc. The academic dean or provost, the head of student affairs, and the chief financial officer were asked to respond to the Profile separately, with the institutional researcher compiling a consensus survey. The intent of this work is to rank schools in terms of their commitment to civic engagement so we can see whether schools judged to be more committed to civic engagement have a greater impact on their seniors and alumni. The Institutional Profile is shared in Appendix 4

In our analysis of the data from these three sources, we will seek answers to the following questions: 3

1. Will we see patterns in the surveys, focus groups, and institutional profile that indicate the kinds of activities and policies that are most likely to foster greater civic engagement in colleges and beyond?

2. Will some schools do a better job in fostering civic engagement? Can we distinguish between high and lower performing institutions? Can we discern which practices can lead to greater impacts? (Statement by senior administrators at ceremonial functions, such as orientation for incoming students? religious affiliation? required community service?)

3. What is the interrelation between academic study (which may give students insight into the historical background and structural causes of inequality) and extra-curricular and co-curricular activities dedicated to civic engagement that typically tend to be palliative (for example, Habitat for Humanity).

4. Are there connections between skill in writing and critical thinking and civic engagement, or are these skills discrete? While this is not a central question of the study, we might hypothesize that students who can think critically possess the analytic ability to understand, say, causes of inequality and that this understanding may motivate civic engagement. Or perhaps the cognitive and analytic abilities are not as important as other human traits, such as empathy, moral fervor, reverence for others, and hope.

The planners were aware of the limitations of their approach. In contrast to more focused assessment work, such as assessing student papers with a rubric or having the CLA (Collegiate Learning Assessment) scored by trained readers, assessing civic engagement is fraught with confounding variables. Despite our working definition of civic engagement as one that requires action, not just advocating certain attitudes and beliefs, such action is difficult to measure directly and so data must be gathered from self- reports. A second area of concern centers on our use of alumni surveys. Because alumni have had many experiences following graduation, it is harder to say that their reported levels of civic engagement have been influenced by their experiences at our schools. Also, particularly for the students surveyed ten year after their graduation, we need to be aware of institutional change. The Institutional Profile provides data on the colleges in 2008, and today’s schools may differ significantly from the schools over ten years ago. Finally, the matter of value added is problematic, for we have limited information on students’ engagement before coming to college and have no ready controls such as ACT/SAT scores and high school class percentile.

We have no ready answers to these complexities, and we hope that our work can offer some clarification. The faculty planners and institutional researchers are aware of these problems and will keep them in mind as they analyze the data. Because the consortium did not meet in June, the faculty will analyze the data at the September 12-14 meetings at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. To date, Tim Schermer and Jon Christy have compiled the data from the CSS and Alumni Survey and have 4 created detailed reports; the Institutional Profile is currently being completed on each campus, and the focus group transcripts are being analyzed by Brian Pittman, a research associate at Wilder Research, St. Paul, Minnesota. We will have a rich set of data to discuss at Wittenberg.

Writing and Critical Thinking Assessment Revisited In last year’s annual report we shared our initial examination of the critical-thinking data and the relation between gains in writing and gains in critical thinking. We used our data to investigate the claim, common in composition theory and in education pedagogy, that clear writing fosters clear thinking. If that is the case, we should see a strong correlation between gains in writing and gains in critical thinking.

Last year, the evidence we found in our initial analysis (summarized in Table 1) was mixed because of what we felt was an anomaly with School C’s critical-thinking results. During the assessment session at Luther College, faculty readers had expressed difficulty with junior and seniors papers written in response to one assignment, saying it was a poor fit with the rubric. In addition, the faculty at School C argued that their first-year papers had received a great deal of attention from faculty as part of the highly structured writing program, whereas papers from the junior and senior sample were less certain to have received such consistent faculty attention. In other words, the first-year paper scores may have been somewhat higher because of faculty help and the junior papers may have more accurately represented the functional ability of the students. Deciding what led to School C’s puzzling scores—it was tied for the greatest gains for writing at 25 percentile gains but had the lowest rating for critical thinking with a 21 percentile drop —was important. With School C’s scores included, the correlation between gains in writing and increase in critical thinking was mildly negative (-0.09). With School C excluded, the correlation was moderately strong at 0.75. We hoped that an examination of the assignments, an issue that the faculty who had assessed papers for writing quality at Alma College had raised as an issue for exploration, might help us decide the matter.

Table 1: Percentile Gains for Writing and Critical Thinking Writing Critical Thinking School FY to JR FY to JR/SR Difference Difference A 21% 20% B 20% 11% C 25% -21% D 2% 9% E 20% 22% F 25% 22% ALL 19% 11%

Between our initial and this annual report the institutional researchers have extended their analysis. During our work at Luther College in June 2006, in addition to asking faculty to rate papers for critical thinking, we asked them to assess the paper assignments in terms of fit with the rubric, rating whether the skill or disposition included on the rubric was “not evident,” “implied,” or “evident” in the assignment. We also collected data about the assignments from the teacher including weight of the assignment, due date, minimum number of pages, number of drafts, outside readers to aid revision, etc. Of the two new approaches, the latter one proved to be the most useful.

To more clearly delineate institutional impact, the institutional researchers recalculated the raw scores of the ratings of papers to control for the effect of other factors. The factors analyzed included student’s gender, parents’ level of education, income, ACT/SAT scores, high-school class percentile, among others. Using a stepwise regression, Tim Schermer determined which factors were significant. For writing quality, ACT/SAT and high-school percentile were significant, for critical-thinking ACT/SAT, grade weight for the class, and gender. To control for these factors Schermer computed an adjusted score for each school that more precisely reflected the institutional impact for both writing and critical thinking. The recomputed results are shown in Table 2. (A more detailed description of the process is included in Appendix 5).

Table 2: Recalculated Percentile Gains for Writing and Critical Thinking Recalculated Writing Recalculated FY Critical Thinking Critical Thinking School FY to JR to JR FY to JR/SR FY to JR/SR Difference Difference Difference Difference A 21% 24% 20% 18% B 20% 20% 11% 14% C 25% 28% -21% 4% D 2% 0% 9% 2% E 20% 13% 22% 17% F 25% 34% 22% 27% ALL 19% 20% 11% 14%

The most noticeable change is for School C whose adjusted score changed considerably, from a negative 21 percentile points to a positive 4 percentile points. The analysis showed that the grade weight of School’s C first papers was significantly greater than the junior/senior sample, 35% versus 21% of the course grade. The data collected from teachers also showed that the first-year papers received substantially more attention from both teacher and peers than the junior/senior sample. The change in School C’s scores demonstrates that external factors such as assignment and grade weight can substantially affect ratings and the “value added.” If subsequent assessment work shows this again to be true, collection of information about assignment, grade weight, and other factors ought to be part of any assessment value-added work.

The correlation between gains in writing skill and critical thinking using the recalculated figures is .61 (significance = 0.195). Given the small sample size (N=6), this significance is high enough for us to have some confidence in the validity of the correlation. Our data, therefore, suggests that clearer writing and clearer thinking are related skills.

In other ways, the initial conclusions shared in the last year’s annual report still stand. The reanalysis did not change the general conclusions concerning the correlation between the faculty rating of writing and critical thinking and the NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) and CLA detailed in last year’s report. These included 1) a modest correspondence between CLA score gains (particularly Analytic Writing scores) and gains measured by reading “live” student work and 2) strong correlations between NSSE Active and Collaborative Learning and Student-Faculty Interaction benchmarks and CLA scores. An initial look at the CSS Student surveys as part of the civic engagement work supported importance of Student-Faculty Interaction. Appendix 5 contains updated correlations using the recomputed scores for writing and critical thinking.

A Look Ahead to Year Four The Teagle Foundation’s approval of our consortium’s request to extend the study to year four will allow us to do a longitudinal analysis using both the CLA and faculty’s rating of writing quality. The class of 2009 who shared papers for the assessment of writing quality and took the CLA for us in the fall of 2005 will be starting their senior year this fall. We hope to recruit the same sample of students who took the CLA during their first year. Though the unit of analysis for the Teagle Study is the institution, recruiting as many repeats students will provide us with greater confidence in the validity of our conclusions.

Work in year four will allow us to explore the following areas:

1. We can compare the results of the CLA in both cross sectional and longitudinal administrations. We can determine if the results of the cross-sectional administration of 2005-2006 differs from those of the longitudinal administration we will do this year. This analysis will help us see whether the cross-sectional approach, which is easier to do, provides similar data as a longitudinal administration.

2. We can look a second time at correlations between the faculty’s rating of writing quality and the CLA scores. The correlations we shared in last year’s report showed that the NSSE Benchmarks were not equally important in student learning, gauged in terms of college faculty member’s reading of student work. A similar pattern in our next round of assessment would help us use NSSE data more productively as we seek ways to help students develop.

3. Data from the second administration of the CLA and second reading of paper scores will help gauge the reliability of the assessment approaches we have used in the Teagle Study. If our approach to assessment is reliable, we would expect to see similar relative rankings of the schools in the second round. A school with an organized first-year writing program and upper-level writing 7

across the curriculum courses that ranked high in the first administration ought to be high in a second administration as well.

Our work in the fourth year has implications not only for our six-school consortium but also for other schools. While our work has not had the precision required for scientific educational research, lacking control groups and validated instruments, we have been careful and so our conclusions may be useful for other schools doing value-added assessment and for those who use the NSSE and the CLA to measure student achievement. A next step is an even more rigorous direct assessment of student work at various institutions that administer the NSSE and the CLA. Our work, repeated on a larger scale with more varied institutions, could have great value in determining more precisely the usefulness of value- added assessment in helping our students become better communicators and thinkers and more committed and responsible human beings.

It is also worth noting that individual schools may have their own goals. One of the schools completed a major revision of its general-education curriculum as the Teagle Study started and another has beefed up its upper-level writing offerings. Both schools hope to see higher scores in the second round of assessment.

Some Concluding Observations After our meetings the faculty and administrators typically comment on the great value they find in our cooperative work, including the conversations about teaching and student learning. The Teagle Foundation has helped us learn to do assessment with greater confidence and skill. We offer a list of the other ways that Teagle support has made an impact and encouraged us to try assessment that we might not have tried before our collaborative work:

1. We know of several teachers at varied schools who have used the writing and critical thinking rubrics in their classes, in subjects as varied as mathematics and history.

2. Teagle Scholar Tricia Seifert of the University of Iowa reports that she has used the Teagle writing rubric in her classes, so our work has legs beyond the six liberal-arts schools.

3. A consortium school has successfully applied for a substantial grant to help improve writing instruction based in part on the results of our assessment work.

4. Several schools have taken part in other assessment projects including the Parsing the First Year of College Study and the Wabash National Study of the Liberal Arts.

5. Jon Christy, Michael Nolan, and Tim Schermer presented results from the first two years at the annual Higher Educational Data sharing Conference held in Denver, Colorado from June 22-24.

6. Drawing on the expertise of Craig Sirles and Ty Buckman, who served as chief readers for the writing and critical thinking assessment sessions, one school has successfully assessed first-year 8

papers using a locally developed rubric and the spreadsheet we created to track inter-reader agreement.

We thank you for your support in helping us as we work together to improve the education we provide for our students.

Appendix 1

ALUMNI SURVEY SUPPLEMENTAL ITEMS June 3, 2007

ACTIVITIES:

Question 1: Since leaving college, indicate if you have performed any of the following: Scale: Frequently –Occasionally-Once or Twice-Never  Voted in a national election.

 Voted in a state/local election.

 Served on a committee or board of a community, religious or service organization.

 Donated professional services on a “pro bono” basis.

 Worked with others to solve a problem in the community where you live.

 Donated money to: A political candidate or cause A religious organization An educational organization A human services or community services organization (United Way; local food bank; disaster relief) Arts/Cultural organization

 Based your consumer behavior upon the social or political values of the company.

 Participated in disaster relief efforts.

 Raised funds for a cause.

 Attended religious services

Question 2: Since leaving college, have you: Scale: Yes - No

 Participated in stipend service or mission work (e.g. Americorps; Peace Corps)?

 Been employed by a not-for-profit organization (e.g. Red Cross, a foundation)?

 Served in the military?

 Run for public office?

FREQUENCY:

Question 3: Within the past twelve months, how frequently have you volunteered time to the following types of organizations? Scale: Weekly - Monthly - Rarely - Never

 School/Educational  Cultural/ Arts  Religious/Faith-based  Civic (e.g. United Way, Rotary, local government)  Political  Sports or recreational  Hospital or health  Advocacy/issue (e.g. Sierra Club, Common Cause)  Community/neighborhood group  Human services (e.g. food, shelter, clothing, special needs)

MOTIVATION: Question 4: How important are the following in your decision to participate in community/volunteer activities?

Scale: Essential –Very Important –Somewhat important – Not Important – Not applicable

 I want to do something about an issue that matters to me.  I want to do my part as a community member.  I want to enhance my professional network.  It is an expression of my faith.  I want to influence the political structure, laws or public policies.  I want to be involved in my children’s activities.  I want to gain new skills and knowledge.  I want to meet and spend time with people who share my ideals.

Appendix 2

SUPPLEMENTAL ITEMS FOR THE COLLEGE SENIOR SURVEY June 3, 2007

Since entering college have you: (Mark yes or no for each item) YES NO Studied abroad in a developing country? If yes, was this experience for more than 4 weeks?

Been active in a student group that emphasizes  Political involvement  Environmental issues  International issues  Social/Diversity awareness  Global Awareness  Human Services

Performed community-based research?

Received a community service grant or scholarship?

Been a member of an organization that requires service?

Been involved in a campus faith-based organization?

Held a campus or work-study job that involved service to the community?

Participated in a service or mission trip?

Completed an internship/practicum with a:  Not-for-profit organization  Government agency  Educational institution

Performed other volunteer work in the community that was not sponsored by a college office or student group?

Appendix 3 Institutional Profile (draft 11) Midwest Alliance for Learning in the Liberal Arts Study of Civic Engagement

1. Institutional Identity and Culture______

A. Is service and/or civic engagement a component of your institution’s mission statement?

No Yes Yes Yes Implied Explicit and brief Explicit and detailed

Please share school mission statement:

B. Is service and/or civic engagement emphasized in your institution’s marketing materials (e.g., website, brochures)? If so, how pervasive is the emphasis?

No emphasis Occasional emphasis Frequent emphasis Widespread emphasis

“Widespread” means dedicated material/brochures or frequent mentions in a majority of marketing materials.

C. In a typical academic year, how often does your institution’s senior leadership explicity promote service and/or civic engagement as a priority (e.g., in presidential addresses, media interviews, reports to the faculty, etc.

Never Rarely Occasionally Frequently

Please share brief examples about the type of public emphasis:

D. Apart from work done for accreditation visits, does your institution systematically assess how the broader community perceives your institution’s engagement with the community?

No Yes, minor efforts Yes, moderate efforts Yes, extensive efforts

E. Does your institution use this assessment data to influence its work?

Never Rarely Sometimes Frequently

F. In an academic year, does your institution formally recognize service and/or civic engagement through campus-wide awards and celebrations?

No Ad hoc/sporadically Annually, not publicly Annually and publicly

2. Institutional Commitment______

A. Policies 1. Is service and/or civic engagement an independent component in your institution’s strategic plan?

No Yes Yes Yes Implied Explicit and brief Explicit and detailed

2. Do your institutional purchasing/procurement policies consider local, regional, and local impact?

Rarely Sometimes Frequently Always

If so, please describe:

3. Do your institutional facilities’ policies consider environmental impact?

Rarely Sometimes Frequently Always

If so, please briefly describe the policies.

4. Does your institution’s endowment policy consider local, regional, and/or global impact?

Rarely Sometimes Frequently Always

If so, please describe.

5. Does your institution have any other policies promoting service and/or civic engagement not covered in your response above? No _____ Yes _____ 14

If YES, please describe the policies. B. Institutional Community Engagement 1. Does your institution have agreements with any community agencies (e.g., social service agencies) to provide service (other than professional internships such as nursing, social work, and student teaching)? If so, please describe.

None 1-2 3-5 5 or more agencies agencies agencies

For these agencies, how many of these are long-standing (a decade or more)? ______

2. What percentage of your 2008 graduates participated in a formal community placement to complete their degree (i.e. internship, student teaching, practicum, etc)? ______

0-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50 +

3. Does your institution have any formal governance committees (excluding boards of trustees) that require at least one community member? If so, please describe.

No Yes, for one Yes, for Yes, for all/most or two stakeholders several stakeholders stakeholders

4. Please describe the importance of “community outreach” practices for your institution’s identity:

Community education (adult education, Elderhostel, etc.) No Minor Modest Major effort effort effort effort

Learning centers (e.g., environmental learning centers) No Minor Modest Major effort effort effort effort

Cultural events (plays, concerts, festivals, etc.) No Minor Modest Major effort effort effort effort

5. Please briefly describe all long-standing “community partnerships” active on your campus. (Please use back of additional sheets if necessary.) 15

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. Does the community have a role/voice in planning for your institution’s service and/or civic engagement? If so, please describe.

No Minor Modest Major role role role role

7. Does your institution solicit feedback and/or assessment of its community engagement from members of the community? If so, please describe.

No Yes, for one Yes, for Yes, for all/most or two stakeholders several stakeholders stakeholders

8. What percentage of faculty engage in scholarship (e.g., research, presentations, publications) related to service and/or civic engagement.

Less than 25% 26-50% 51-75% 76-100% of departments of departments of departments of departments

If so, are students typically integrated into this work?

9. Does your institution promote and make accessible to the community its cultural and physical resources? If so, please describe how.

Never Rarely Sometimes Frequently

C. Institutional Practices and Resources 1. Does you institution have a service-learning and/or community service office?

No _____ (Skip to 3 below) Yes _____

Funding A source of funding? % of office budget Regular college budget Yes No Grant Yes No Endowment Yes No Other Yes No Other Yes No

2. If yes, in a typical academic year approximately what percentage of students is served by this effort?

0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

3. Does your institution have other centers or offices (independent of a service learning/community service office) that promote and support civic engagement? No _____ Yes _____

If yes,

a. Name of center or office: ______In a typical academic year approximately what percentage of students is served by this effort?

0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

b. Name of center or office: ______In a typical academic year approximately what percentage of students is served by this effort?

0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

c. Name of center or office: ______In a typical academic year approximately what percentage of students is served by this effort?

0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

(Use additional sheets if necessary)

4. Does your institution have a faculty governance committee with responsibilities for service and/or civic engagement (e.g., service-learning committee)?

No Yes, with other Yes, with some Yes, with no major oversight other oversight other oversight responsibilities responsibilities responsibilities than CE than CE than CE

5. Is service and/or civic engagement with the larger, off campus, community recognized in faculty members’ promotion and tenure decisions?

No Yes, minor Yes, Yes, emphasis moderate emphasis major emphasis

6. Are professional development funds used to support courses that include a service/community- based learning opportunity and/or to promote civic engagement among faculty and staff?

No _____ Yes _____

If yes, approximately how many courses are supported each year? ______What percentage of total classes are these service classes? ______If yes, describe the efforts to promote CE among faculty and staff ______

7. Does your institution have a curricular leadership training program (e.g., major or minor) for students?

No _____ Yes _____

b. Does the major/minor have a civic engagement emphasis?

No CE Yes, minor CE Yes, moderate CE Yes, major CE emphasis emphasis emphasis emphasis

c. Approximately what percentage of students study in this leadership major/minor? 0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

8. Does your institution have an extra-curricular leadership training program for students?

No _____ Yes _____

If yes, please describe: b. Does the major/minor have a civic engagement emphasis?

No CE Yes, minor Yes, moderate Yes, major emphasis CE emphasis CE emphasis CE emphasis

A. Approximately what percentage of students participates in this leadership program in a typical year?

0-5% 6-10% 11-15% 16-20% 21-30% 31-40% > 40%

9. Please indicate approximately how many of each type of the following student organizations are active on your campus: 0 1 or 2 3 to 5 6 or more political community service faith-based diversity issues Other (please list) ______Other (please list) ______Other (please list) ______Other (please list) ______Other (please list) ______

10. Does the campus offer scholarships or grants to students for service and/or civic engagement?

No Yes, one or two Yes, several Yes, a substantial number

11. Does your institution maintain any tracking or assessment mechanisms for service and/or civic engagement in academic and non-academic programs?

Academic Departments/Programs

No Yes, for one Yes, for Yes, for all/most or two departments several departments departments

Non-academic Departments/Programs

No Yes, for one Yes, for Yes, for all/most or two departments several departments departments

Please briefly describe what and how data is tracked/assessed as well as how the data from the assessment is used.

12. Does your institution have any other practices or resources promoting service and/or civic engagement not presented in your responses above? Please describe briefly:

D. Curriculum and Pedagogy 1. Does your institution have a community service/civic engagement requirement?

No _____ Yes _____

If yes, Place in curriculum (Please check all that apply) ______General-education requirement ______First-year experience ______Course in major ______Capstone requirement in major ______Internship ______Other: ______

Number of hours of service required ______Number of credits ______Reflection component required? No _____ Yes _____ 21

Comments:

Are all students required to fulfill the service requirement? No _____ Yes _____

2. Does your institution have an elective community service/civic engagement experience in the curriculum?

a. No _____ Yes _____

b. If yes, Place in curriculum (Please check all that apply) ______General-education requirement ______First-year experience ______Course in major ______Capstone requirement in major ______Internship ______Other: ______

c. Number of hours of service required ______d. Number of credits ______e. Reflection component required? No _____ Yes _____

Comments:

f. What percentage of FTE students take this elective?

0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

g. How many departments/programs have a required service course? ______

h. What percentage of departments has a required service course? ______

3. How many travel courses (i.e., field study, study abroad) include a service/community-based learning opportunity? ______

b. What percentage of travel courses does this represent? ______

c. What percentage of students participate in travel programs with a service component?

0-25% 26%-50% 51-75% 76-100%

Appendix 4

MALLA Teagle-Study Focus Group

INTRODUCTION SCRIPT

I appreciate that you have all come out this evening. I know that you’ve all got other things you could be doing on a Sunday evening. As you may know _____ College has received money from a foundation to try to understand and improve the way we prepare students for civic engagement. We are so happy that you’ve agreed to help us. Your opinions are vital to helping us figure out how to improve our programs. I will be a facilitator for our discussion and my job is to keep us on track. I will try to keep us on schedule so we finish by ____ O’clock and everyone gets a chance to talk. I may have to interrupt from time to time.

QUESTIONS

1. Definition: What do you think about when you hear the words “civic engagement”? Facilitator: Expand concept; get examples, try other wording such as “community involvement,” ask those who do not respond. (Then tell them): For purposes of today’s discussion, let’s use this definition:

"Civic Engagement is active and voluntary participation in and/or support of activities whose purpose is to improve the quality of community life. ‘Voluntary’ may include modest remuneration or expense reimbursement."

2. Experiences at school: Think for a moment about your experiences over the past four years at Augustana. Tell us about the types of civic engagement activities you have participated in while at college?

—which types of civic engagement are most valuable to you personally?

3. Motivation: What do you think motivated you to do these types of activities?

--What, if any, experiences at this school motivated your participation in these activities?

-- Did any of these experiences (study trips, service work, profs, classes) change the way you think about or engage in these activities?

--Think back to before you came to this school. What experiences, if any, before college motivated your participation in these activities? Have you been more or less involved in these activities since you came to college?

4. Personal Change: How have you changed as a result of this experience of civic engagement? 24

5. After college: What kinds of civic engagement do you see yourself doing after leaving college?

6. Effect of school: How, if at all, does your community involvement experience at Augustana either encourage or discourage participation in these types of activities?

7. Could do better? What, if anything, do you think Augustana could do better, to promote participation in these activities either during or after college?