Writing Assessment

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Direct Assessment of Research and Information Literacy Skills in First Year Seminar Courses - Assessment Committee Paper #3 Part I
(Spring 2009 + 2010; see also posting under Information Literacy)
St. Lawrence University’s First-Year program places a significant emphasis on the development of writing, research, and information literacy skills.  This paper discusses results from the direct assessment of research papers randomly collected from First Year Seminars in Spring 2009 and Spring 2010 and analyzed by the University Assessment Committee.  Results suggest that for the majority of students, skill development is at the level expected of students at end of the first year of college.  Greatest weaknesses were found in the articulation of a quality, focused thesis. Read more...

Direct Assessment of Research and Information Literacy Skills in First Year Seminar Courses - Assessment Committee Paper #3 Part II
(Spring 2018)
In a continuing effort to move the Assessment Committee’s work of writing/research assessment of the First Year Program (FYP) from Spring 2011 and Fall/Spring 2012 into the hands of First Year faculty, a first program-wide course-embedded assessment project in First Year Seminar (FYS) courses was carried out in Spring 2018, Each First Year Seminar instructor score their own students’ papers, and following this, a second reader read and scored a random sample of papers from each seminar. Results indicated a need for future faculty development and grade norming sessions as well as minor modifications for both writing and research rubric to seek further clarity.  Read more...

Writers of Concern - Assessment Committee Paper #5
During 2012-13, a subcommittee of the Assessment Committee developed a new reporting system for identifying writers of concern in the First-Year Program, which involves feedback from faculty about students with writing concerns (collected via a web survey), a submission of writing samples for students reported, and the follow-up with these students by the Director of the WORD studio.  The longer-term goal is to refine this process as an alternative to our current "unsatisfactory writing" (UW) system. Read more...

Indirect Assessment of Writing Skills based on Surveys - Assessment Committee Paper #6
In addition to the direct assessments described above, the Assessment Committee also reviewed carefully self-reported data from first-year students and seniors on their perceived writing skills, gains in writing and how much writing and revision they were asked to do while at St. Lawrence, compared to students at other institutions. Read more...

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