NSU's Quality Enhancement Plan April 2017

NSU QEP Assessment Plan | 31 Direct Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes Writing-Enriched Course Assignments Assessment of assignments will take place at the course level for the expanded writing fellow program. Briefly, a writing-enriched course is one that assigns considerable writing in the discipline of the student’s major. These writing-enriched courses will provide students with structured writing activities in their respective discipline and will include feedback to enhance their writing skills. The data to be collected from the writing-enriched courses will include at least one course assignment/writing artifact completed during a given semester, as well as an end-of-the-semester reflection on their writing. These documents will be analyzed qualitatively to determine themes for review to inform change, if needed. Quantitative assessments for the writing-enriched course assignments will take place annually. Assignments from the writing-enriched courses will be assessed using a standardized rubric (see Appendix D). The rubric is designed to evaluate the QEP student learning outcomes and will help to create a score that can be used to quantify student success in attaining the outcomes explicated earlier in the proposal (rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and composing, processes, conventions and reflection). The results of the analysis will help inform the QEP Committee as to which outcomes seem to be most positively affected by the various strategies, as well as indicating those areas where improvement gains are less apparent. Data analysis will allow for the QEP Committee to modify, if necessary, the implementation plan to ensure that consistent growth is seen across the five outcomes. On the basis of this analysis, improvements will be incorporated into the curriculum, pedagogy, faculty preparation, or other areas to address the weaknesses for each course. The rubric that will be used in the writing-enriched courses was developed by the QEP content area expert, Kevin Dvorak, and his colleagues in the Department of Writing and Communication. The process of rubric development/adaption included consideration of other widely used rubrics, including the Written Communication Value Rubric developed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Writing Center Resource Utilization and Satisfaction Utilization changes for the NSU Write from the Start Writing and Communication Center will be assessed through the collection of descriptive data. The center will collect data for visits to the physical location, inquiries/assistance services provided online, and postsession client satisfaction questionnaires These data will track (a) total number of visits, (b) an unduplicated count of unique visits, (c) average number of visits per user, and (d) satisfaction with service provision as documented in brief reflection statements collected on postsession client evaluations. Data will be disaggregated for the online and face-to-face services. The current writing fellows program, which only works with first-year composition courses, has been collecting client satisfaction surveys since 2011. The assessment team will continue collecting data to assess client’s level of satisfaction with each session attended, as well as an assessment of overall satisfaction with the services provided by the writing fellows. In addition to assessing satisfaction, data will be collected to assess the factors