Assessing student learning and departmental effectiveness through an undergraduate comprehensive exam

Abstract

Student assessment helps guide understanding of learning experiences and departmental effectiveness. In this paper one department’s locally developed undergraduate comprehensive exam measuring knowledge in core criminal justice areas is discussed and preliminary results are evaluated. Exam data were collected from seniors and, as baseline, from freshmen. Regression results showed that seniors had significantly more knowledge across all core areas than freshmen. Overall, this lends support to the idea that the department was effective in imparting knowledge to students. There was, however, a gender effect present and possible reasons for this result are explored. Limitations of the assessment instrument and directions for future research are also discussed.

Keywords:

• student assessment
• student learning outcomes
• comprehensive exams
• departmental effectiveness

Acknowledgement

A previous version of this manuscript was presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology.

Notes

1. The comprehensive exam is available from the first author.

2. Transfer students make up approximately 20% of the criminal justice majors. They must take most of their required courses on the Westfield campus.

3. Seniors constitute the lowest percentage of the overall criminal justice student population. This is due to attrition and rapidly increasing numbers of incoming criminal justice student populations on both campuses.