journal of public affairs education - NASPAA *The Global Standard ...

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How Do We Know What They Know?Evaluating Student-Learning Outcomes in an MPA Programassignments are then combined, and submitted by students to their StudentLearning Portfolios at the end of the program of study. The purpose of the PreandPost-Instructional Assignments is to give the course instructor and thestudent an opportunity to assess the achievement of course-specific learningobjectives. While instructors have great latitude in developing these assignments,the Pre- and Post-Instructional Assignments must gauge similar skills, andprovide an empirical basis for comparison of student performance at both pointsin the semester. The Departmental Assessment Coordinator is charged with theresponsibility of collecting and reviewing copies of these assignments from onecore course per semester. In the fall 2007 semester, the core PPA 555 PublicBudgeting and Finance (PPA 555) course was selected for analysis.The results of analyzing assignments from two sections of PPA 555demonstrate that students were better equipped to analyze city budgetdocuments after finishing course requirements. Both assignments requiredstudents to analyze a city budget, and document the type of budget formatused, the revenue/expenditure patterns for the city, and the fiscal solvency ofthe city. Both assignments also required students to recommend theappropriate budget format for the city to use. In the Pre-InstructionalAssignment, less than 50 percent of the students were able correctly toidentify the type of budget format used (n=25). This compares to 92 percentof students (23 of 25) who performed this task correctly in the Post-Instructional Assignment. The fiscal solvency question also demonstrated anincrease in student skills. Fewer than 10 percent of Pre-Instructional students(2 of 25) were able to correctly assess the fiscal solvency of the city. In thePost-Instructional Assignment, 80 percent of students (20 of 25) were able toassess it correctly.The data generated by these Pre- and Post-Instructional Assignments arecomplemented by traditional student course evaluations. The mean value for thequestion regarding the usefulness of the PPA 555 Public Budgeting course is4.57, on a 5-point Likert scale. This is typical for most courses in the MPAProgram (program average = 4.5).PROGRAM CONCLUSION ASSESSMENTSThe capstone experience for MPA students is the completion of PPA 697Directed Research. PPA 697 is the final required course in the program, and itgives students the option to complete a traditional research project, or a series offive case studies. The case study option requires the completion of a case study ineach of five core content areas, which include budgeting, human resourcemanagement, organization theory, policy analysis, and research methods. Uponreceiving a case study from a student, the PPA 697 advisor routes it to the corecontent faculty member(s) for review and evaluation. Once evaluated, these casestudies are returned to the PPA 697 advisor for delivery to the student.Journal of Public Affairs Education 275
How Do We Know What They Know?Evaluating Student-Learning Outcomes in an MPA ProgramFINAL SKILLS SELF-ASSESSMENTSRegardless of whether a student selects the traditional research paper optionor the new case study method, all PPA 697 students are required to submit aFinal Skills Self-Assessment. This assessment has three parts. Part I is anordinal ranking of how much students feel they know in each of the skill areaslisted on the Initial Skills Self-Assessment. The areas and the ranking systemin the Final Skills Self-Assessment are identical to those provided in the InitialSkills Self-Assessment. This assessment is designed to provide a post-curriculartest of self-perceived student-learning outcomes as students prepare to exit theMPA program. Part II is a narrative description of students’ experiencesand/or skills in each of the five core content areas. Part III of the assessmentrequires students to reflect on their experiences and determine how well theprogram met their expectations. An example of the Final Skills Self-Assessment is shown in Appendix B. The Part I results of the Final Skills Self-Assessment are presented in Table 3. (See Table 3.)The sample of students’ who completed the Final Skills Self-Assessmentadmittedly are different from those sampled in the Initial Skills Self-Assessments. Given the newness of the assessment system, students whocompleted the Initial Skills Self-Assessment were in their first semester of studyTable 3.Part I: Final Skills Self-Assessment Averagesfor Academic Year 2007-2008 (PPA 697)Skill Areas Mean Std DevBudgeting 3.71 (0.984)Decision Making 4.13 (0.704)Ethics 4.00 (0.771)Legal 3.18 (0.730)Oral 4.31 (0.740)Organizational Behavior 4.08 (0.850)Personnel 4.03 (0.788)Policy 4.03 (0.972)Problem Solving 4.24 (0.675)Research 3.89 (0.863)Teamwork 4.5 (0.688)Written 4.5 (0.647)Note: Sample Size = 38The number on the left is the average of results from an ordinalranking scale of 1 to 5, where students completing theprogram self-rated their knowledge levels in each identifiedskill area. The number in parentheses is the standard deviation.276 Journal of Public Affairs Education
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