In order to ensure continuing and improving quality to students and the various publics that the USCA Political Science program serves, we are committed to an ongoing assessment of our program.


Assessment Committee

The Political Science Program Assessment Committee consists of Carol Botsch, Chair, Robert Botsch, Girma Negash, and Greg Weis. The committee began meeting in the Spring of 2000 to update and improve the assessment instruments that were employed at the time. Beginning in the fall of 2000 the committee began to keep minutes of its meetings.


Assessment Methods

In the Spring of 2000 the Political Science Program Assessment Committee decided to create an entrance and exit examination to supplement the portfolio that students create, present, and have evaluated. The exam was created from questions submitted by Professors Botsch, Botsch and Negash. Professor Robert Botsch created a draft from this list, which was critiqued by Professor Weis. The entire committee reviewed the draft. The test consistes of 100 short answer questions and will be graded by a grading subcommittee (Botsch, Botsch, and Negash) in which each professor will grade those questions in his or her respective part of the test. It will be given to both incoming new students and to graduating seniors in their final semester. The goal is to measure the level of knowledge about the discipline of politics and all of its major areas as students enter and as the exit. This allows a quantitative measure of the level of knowledge of entering students (and how that changes over time), the level of knowledge of matriculating students (and how that changes over time), and the amount of knowledge gained. The committee anticipated that for the first year or two the test would have to be incrementally changed so as to improve both its validity and reliability.

The other method of assessment is the graduating student portfolio. Students are asked to compile a folder containing an example paper from each course they took in their major. The student is then asked to examine those papers and write a descriptive essay on what these papers demonstrate about their experiences in political science at USCA. The advisor for each student also examines the portfolio and writes an evaluative essay on the content. Both of these essays, along with the Chair's evaluation of the portfolio are added to the portfolio. The purpose of this process is to qualitatively evaluate the progress in the quality of work performed by the student as they progress through the program. The portfolios are maintained by the department office.