Biology and Marine Biology

(Axel Boer) #1

Goal: Thoughtful expression
and Information literacy


Graduate Student
Prospectus Symposium
Evaluation form. Our
assessment tool will be
question #5. This SLO was
created, in part, to help
understand the poor
performance of students on
“breadth of knowledge” in
SLO2 in the 2007- 0 8 year.

Student Prospectus
symposium. Data on each
student’s project in terms of
quality, design and
significance are collected.
Assessment of this SLO
began in Spring 2009. By
the nature of data
collection, assessment for
this SLO is pooled with the
Biology M.Sc. program.

be excellent with 98% of
students to be satisfactory
(63%) or above
(commendable, 36%) These
numbers are similar to
previous years. In 2011,
faculty deemed student
performance on this SLO to
be excellent with 99% of
students to be satisfactory
(63%) or above
(commendable, 36%)
[n=123]. In 2011, faculty
determined that 98% of the
students were performing
well in this SLO, with 40% of
projects rated as
“commendable”, 58% as
“satisfactory” and only 2%
as “unsatisfactory” (n=261).
In 2009-2010, the faculty
determined that 98% of the
students were performing
well in this SLO, with 36% of
projects rated as
“commendable”, 62% as
“satisfactory” and only 2%
as “unsatisfactory”.

are meeting our
expectations in this SLO and
that no action will be taken.
Action Item: Continue
collecting data as
prescribed by the approved
SLO assessments.

SLO2: A graduate student
should be able to
independently answer
questions regarding their
research field. Link to
UNCW Learning Goal:
Information literacy, critical
thinking, thoughtful
expression.


Oral preliminary exam is
successfully completed. The
student’s committee
evaluates performance in
the exam with a form.

Each student in the program
is assessed by each of
his/her committee
members. Data on the
student’s ability to
articulate information, on
the depth and breadth of
their knowledge, and
professional poise are
collected.

Faculty compliance
improved significantly for
this SLO this year. In 2012-
2013 we had 25
respondents for this SLO.
Unfortunately student
performance was assessed
at lower levels than
previous years. We still
have 83-96% of students
performing at the level of

This SLO has been
recognized in the past as
being a challenge for our
students. Over 2009-2012,
we implemented a series of
formal (course-related) and
informal changes to our
M.Sc .programs with the
aim of improving student
performance on this SLO,
which continued to be the
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