End Point Outcomes:
 
 
 
End Point Outcomes For Other Majors:
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2003-2004 Focus on Learning Outcomes for Fourth-Year Students
PSU Department of Languages and Literatures

The Assessment Team shifted its focus to gathering learning outcomes data from students who were completing fourth year programs. The team continued to focus on continuing the pilot program assessment for French and German. It also consulted with each of the major programs for Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Spanish as they selected the learning objectives for which they wished to collect data on at the fourth year level.

In keeping with the Team’s on-going focus on core competencies, most programs chose to focus their assessment on either their students’ oral or written proficiency (CS 1 or 2). The Team narrowed the target of its data collection for French and German to fourth year writing skills (CS 2). Successful outcomes for these skills also implicitly address the FLL program's aim to develop language users who have the skills to operate in academic and ‘real world’ contexts. (CS-6)

Question 5: How many students taking a fourth-year course taught in the target language during the spring term of 2004 meet the program’s desired level for written communication in the language?

Instrument: Students were asked to volunteer a writing sample on the subject of their personal educational choices and perceived advantages and disadvantages of private of public universities in the United States.

The question was designed to attempt to distinguish those students who have reached a level of proficiency sufficient to give them a full adult life in the language, including some occupational use and dealing with complications. The level defined as “meets expectations” for French and German is generally based on ACTFL description of the non-native "Intermediate High" and “Advanced” user of the language. The advanced language user has the minimum proficiency necessary for teaching the language.

The following rubric captures three points of discrimination from the overall rubric that was used to score the writing sample:

  Global Accuracy* Text Type
Exceeds Level Rich language production with native flavor and few errors. Errors virtually never interfere with communication or distract the writer from the message. Extended discourse (multiple paragraphs). Rich use of connectors with few errors.
Meets Level All parts of task accomplished with distinctly non-native flavor. Can be understood without difficulty by readers unaccustomed to dealing with non-native writers. Coherent paragraphs. Some inaccuracy.
Nearly Meets Level Basic task fulfilled with mostly somewhat sparse strings of sentences. Other tasks very sparse of missing. Can be understood with some difficulty by readers used to dealing with non-native writers. Clusters of simple sentences and/or some compound sentences.
Clearly Does Not Meet Level Basic task comprehensible through vocabulary rather than sentence structure. Other tasks sparse, faulty, or missing. Can be understood with much difficulty by readers accustomed to dealing with non-native writers. Simple sentences. Few connectors.

* The term "accuracy" includes grammar, pragmatic competence, vocabulary