2012-2013 Annual Program Assessment Report: Academic First Year Experiences
Please submit report to your department chair or program coordinator, the Associate Dean of your College and the assessment
office by Monday, September 30, 2013. You may submit a separate report for each program which conducted assessment activities.
College: Undergraduate Studies
Department: Academic First Year Experiences
Program: University 100, The Freshman Seminar
Assessment liaison: Cheryl Spector ([email protected])
1. Overview of Annual Assessment Project(s). Provide a brief overview of this year’s assessment plan and process.
We are going on with our plan to assess one University 100 SLO (out of six) each fall. We began at the end of the list in fall 2011
with #6; in fall 2012, we assessed #5 (see the answers to question 3 below); and this fall we are preparing to assess #4 (see the
answer to question #2 below). UNIV 100 faculty assess how well their students have met the SLO as part of embedded UNIV 100
assignments.
2. Assessment Buy-In. Describe how your chair and faculty were involved in assessment related activities. Did department
meetings include discussion of student learning assessment in a manner that included the department faculty as a whole?
My role as course director is equivalent to a department chair. UNIV 100 doesn’t have formal, mandatory faculty meetings, but
there is one mandatory professional development session each spring which includes information about the previous fall’s
assessment results and an invitation to participate in the coming year’s assessment activities. At the spring 2013 meeting,
faculty received a copy of the 2012 assessment results along with selected comments from their colleagues (comments that
were not a required part of the assessment but that—as it turned out—provided quite a bit of food for thought). In summer
2013, UNIV 100 faculty were invited to attend a workshop on using rubrics in UNIV 100. Attendance was not required but the
workshop materials were posted on the faculty Moodle site. In September 2013, the first informal fall faculty meeting will be
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devoted to developing and refining the assessment rubric that will be used this semester as part of the 2013-2014 assessment
cycle. In short: faculty participation is solicited; some faculty do participate; and individual faculty comments collected as part of
the assessment process are shared with all faculty as a way to shape future UNIV 100 course content based on assessment
results.
3. Student Learning Outcome Assessment Project. Answer items a-f for each SLO assessed this year. If you assessed an additional
SLO, copy and paste items a-f below, BEFORE you answer them here, to provide additional reporting space.
3a. Which Student Learning Outcome was measured this year?
SLO #5: Upon successful completion of your U100 class, you will be able to demonstrate your ability to use at least one time
management technique.
3b. Does this learning outcome align with one or more of the university’s Big 5 Competencies? (Delete any which do not apply)
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
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Critical Thinking
Written Communication
Quantitative Literacy
Information Literacy
Comment: the alignment is probably best described as partial. But it’s not negligible. Students who are able “to use at least one
time management technique” are clearly engaging in critical thinking as they choose how to spend their time. They
communicate the fact of their ability through written communication. And while counting out the ways to allot 168 hours per
week doesn’t count as higher mathematics, it nevertheless does involve a certain amount of quantitative literacy. Finally,
successful time management requires that students select a time management tool appropriate to their needs, which means
they are sifting through the many possibilities available. That’s a form of information literacy.
3c. Does this learning outcome align with University’s commitment to supporting diversity through the cultivation and exchange
of a wide variety of ideas and points of view? In what ways did the assessed SLO incorporate diverse perspectives related to race,
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ethnic/cultural identity/cultural orientations, religion, sexual orientation, gender/gender identity, disability, socio-economic
status, veteran status, national origin, age, language, and employment rank?
Probably not, although the use of Associated Students academic planners—distributed free to UNIV 100 students (and other
students while supplies lasted)—ensured that no student was required to purchase a planner, nor to use or own a smart-phone
or other expensive device in order to demonstrate time management skills.
3d. What direct and/or indirect instrument(s) were used to measure this SLO?
The direct instrument was the time management assignment (usually a time log but there is some faculty flexibility) that is
required in all UNIV 100 sections. With some variations, the assignment asks students to log their use of time over several days
and then to reflect on what their use of time says about their values (that is: do they value Facebook over homework, etc.). Both
the time log and the reflection are turned in for a grade and the assignment is discussed in class.
The indirect instrument was the following set of instructions I gave to UNIV 100 faculty:
This fall, I am asking you to give me (Cheryl) assessment data (by email, please) drawn from your students' time log exercises:
1. How many students are enrolled in your UNIV 100 section (on the roster)?
2. How many of those students have demonstrated to you their "ability to use at least one time management technique"?
So I would expect to get two numbers from each UNIV 100 section. Pretty simple, I hope.
*****************
I may, with your consent and advice, ask for further information; but at the moment I'm trying to keep it simple for all of us. If we do
decide we want to learn a bit more, here are some possible additional questions we could try to answer:
Possibly: How many students learned something about time management as a result of taking UNIV 100?
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Possibly: of the students who demonstrated their ability to use etc. etc., how many are "expert" time managers? How many are
"developing" time managers?
Possibly: how could we improve our Time Management module in UNIV 100?
Possibly: what aspects of the Time Management module do you see as essential?
Possibly: what aspects of the Time Management module do you think need to be revised, improved, deleted, or otherwise changed?
3e. Describe the assessment design methodology: For example, was this SLO assessed longitudinally (same students at different
points) or was a cross-sectional comparison used (Comparing freshmen with seniors)? If so, describe the assessment points used.
The assessment was designed to include all UNIV 100 students enrolled during the fall semester. Eventually we may have
comparative longitudinal data (when we return to this SLO in 6 years). But we only see an individual UNIV 100 student once
(unless the student repeats the course to replace a D/U/F grade, which has happened occasionally).
3f. Assessment Results & Analysis of this SLO: Provide a summary of how the results were analyzed and highlight findings from
the collected evidence.
I tallied the responses with help from a UNIV 100 faculty member. She read through the optional faculty comments looking for
themes (repeated comments). I reviewed her findings and also went back to the original faculty reports to assemble this
overview of the results, which I shared with the faculty this past spring:
SLO #5: Upon successful completion of your U100 class, you will be able to . . .
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demonstrate your ability to use at least one time management technique.
First, the questions and their answers from the 41 sections returning data (out of 51 total sections in fall 2012):
 888 students were enrolled in these 41 sections of U100
 802 students responded to or turned in the time management assignment
 740 students were judged to have demonstrated their “ability to use at least one time management technique”
Second, a little math:
 740 out 802 students demonstrated their ability to use at least one time management technique. That’s 92.2 percent of those
reporting in. A- for U100?
Third, a selection from the “Comments (optional)” faculty offered:
a. I think this is an individual faculty decision, but I personally think the Time Management module always needs to be one of the first
modules taught and needs to be monitored throughout the semester (i.e., through periodic academic planner checks).
b. In addition to asking students about their time management techniques, I also asked them what the most helpful assignment was.
Many of them indicated that the time log was the most helpful.
c. I think the Time Log is essential, but several of the students find it tedious.
d. To improve the Time Management module perhaps we can also look at where we can incorporate time management concepts into
other assignments.
e. Every student (each of the 22 who completed the reflection) believed that the awareness they gained through U100 assignments
and discussions concerning the importance of time management was enlightening or helpful or likely to stay with them as they
completed their academic journey at CSUN.
f. Though the feedback on time management assignments/discussions/advice was positive, the main suggestion for improvement
from my students was that of enforcing the use of the academic planner.
g. I used the time management assignment from the Moodle module that required small groups of students create a fictitious
student for whom they must plan-out a week's worth of study complete with unexpected hardships and setbacks. Over 10
students commented on this assignment in their reflections as being eye opening.
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h. A vast majority considered the Academic Planner to be their most useful tool, preferring the physical form over the electronic
version.
i. Maybe it would be a good idea to combine the time management module with the technology log. Many came in astonished and
slightly embarrassed after noting down their time on social media.
j. I have found that the students must experience “time management” and develop the needed planning skills throughout the
semester incrementally.
Fourth and finally: what shall we do differently in 2013 as a result of this assessment feedback?
3g. Use of Assessment Results of this SLO: Describe how assessment results were used to improve student learning. Were
assessment results from previous years or from this year used to make program changes in this reporting year? (Possible
changes include: changes to course content/topics covered, changes to course sequence, additions/deletions of courses in
program, changes in pedagogy, changes to student advisement, changes to student support services, revisions to program SLOs,
new or revised assessment instruments, other academic programmatic changes, and changes to the assessment plan.)
In sharing this assessment report and the comments with UNIV 100 faculty at the spring 2013 Faculty & Mentor Professional
Development Day, I emphasized the repeated references (in the lettered comments just above) to the Associated Students
Academic Planner, recommending that faculty make use of the U100 assignment we have developed to help students get the
most out of the planner.
Other lessons: not all faculty will complete course assessment, no matter how embarrassingly easy you make participation. (In
this case, they only needed to answer three questions by providing me with a single number for each one.) Also, I noticed that
90 percent of the students turned in the assignment. That means 10 percent didn’t bother (even though they were presumably
graded on it). And finally, the richness of answers I received in response to the optional “Comments” prompt has inspired me to
invent a new term of art: collateral assessment. It’s really amazing what people will come up with given the
opportunity/invitation. I learned quite a lot from their feedback.
4. Assessment of Previous Changes: Present documentation that demonstrates how the previous changes in the program resulted
in improved student learning.
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No evidence yet because this fall’s change is our first change. (Last year’s assessment showed that we were quite successful getting
students to engage with other members of the campus community.) I would actually like help understanding how the new emphasis
on academic planners can result in “improved student learning” that I could document. Without repeating the time management
assessment process, how would I know whether more students are managing time better this year compared to last year?
5. Changes to SLOs? Please attach an updated course alignment matrix if any changes were made. (Refer to the Curriculum
Alignment Matrix Template, http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
No changes were made. Because UNIV 100 is a single-course program, all six of our assessment SLOs are introduced and practiced
every year. Some students develop the associated skill more fully than others. Measuring the extent of their development has thus
far not been part of our process though it may be incorporated in 2013-2014 (depending on the final form of the reporting rubric the
faculty choose). With no faculty on the track to tenure in UNIV 100, it is difficult to require an extensive time commitment from
anyone. But we’re making progress each year.
6. Assessment Plan: Evaluate the effectiveness of your 5 year assessment plan. How well did it inform and guide your assessment
work this academic year? What process is used to develop/update the 5 year assessment plan? Please attach an updated 5 year
assessment plan for 2013-2018. (Refer to Five Year Planning Template, plan B or C,
http://www.csun.edu/assessment/forms_guides.html.)
To be honest, we’re not ready for this step yet. The plan ahead is to get through all six UNIV 100 SLOs at the rate of one SLO per fall
semester. We are creating the assessment instrument (and identifying the embedded assignment) each year. Year one was fall
2011; this coming fall 2013 is year three; so we should be assessing the last of the six SLOs in fall 2016. For UNIV 100, SLOs are
identical with PLOs.
It is possible that we may make changes in this process before 2016, especially if we can identify the need for change based on the
evidence we’re collecting. But as we are still inventing the process as we go along, it’s hard to know what changes to make.
Rev. 9-16-2013, p.7
On the other hand: I’m guessing that the yes/no format for the time management SLO will seem a bit too crude this year, and that
we will adopt a rubric for the information literacy SLO that will be somewhat more nuanced.
7. Has someone in your program completed, submitted or published a manuscript which uses or describes assessment activities in
your program? Please provide citation or discuss.
Just me that I know of: the AFYE Annual Report (submitted to Undergraduate Studies in July 2013) once again discusses UNIV 100
assessment and includes the material I cited above in answer to question 3f. It is a complete manuscript. But it is not intended for
publication beyond the campus.
8. Other information, assessment or reflective activities or processes not captured above.
For what it’s worth, I do continue to count how many classes (aside from UNIV 100) use each year’s Freshman Common Reading. I
use textbook order information from the Matador Bookstore to do this.
I also pay attention to each semester’s student course evaluations, to class visit reports created as part of our regular UNIV 100
personnel process, to the quality of each fall’s Freshman Celebration projects, to formal and informal feedback concerning UNIV 100
from faculty, and to unsolicited student comments about the course.
And I would like to do something with the idea of “collateral assessment.” (See the final paragraph of 3g above.)
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