Data-Based Decisions

Human Development and Family Studies, BS/BA

Based on our Board of Regents review in 2011-12 we discovered that our students were required to have 67 credit hours in the major. This was causing undue problems in faculty teaching loads and slowing students in their progress toward graduation. In 2012-13 the curriculum committee revised the entire undergraduate curriculum and created a new emphasis in Human Development Lifespan. These changes allowed us to reduce the number of credits required in the major from 67 down to 43-47 (depending on the emphasis). However, it was discovered that some of the emphases were not entirely covering the department’s core learning objectives. In 2015-16 the curriculum committee was tasked with redesigning the core classes of each emphasis to ensure that all students were taking courses that met the department’s learning objectives. Revisions included an alignment of the face-to-face major the online major with both having the same pre-major courses, core courses, and all students completing a culminating experience based off either research, teaching in the community, or a hands-on work experience. The new changes brought the total required credits for both majors to 55. Both students and faculty support the credit hour updates. All students, regardless of emphasis or modality, are receiving the learning objectives in their core courses. Feedback from student focus groups is overwhelmingly positive. Based on our Practicum and Senior Capstone Project course surveys, our student satisfaction with the major has been very positive in this area as well.

Family Life Studies, BS

During the 2015-2016 catalog year, the curriculum committee revised the requirements for the online program. Based on student feedback and interest, the committee collapsed program requirements into two emphases: Human Development and Family Relations. Based on trends in student enrollments in the Family Life Studies major, the committee updated the pre-major and core courses to align with the on campus program. The major requirements changed from 63 credit hours to 55 credit hours. Students in the Family Life Studies program completed surveys about additional course topics they were interested in specific to the major. From student survey data, the department built HDFS 4560—Preschool Education Orientation as part of the Human Development emphasis. Senior Capstone Project course surveys data indicates positive student satisfaction with the major.

Graduate

Based on the results of our 11-12 Board of Regents review we did a significant revision of our graduate level courses. Our data showed that many students wished they had had additional preparation in research methods and statistical skills. Additionally they requested that more faculty were involved in teaching grad courses. A curriculum committee revised the coursework by adding one new required research methods course for all grad students (Measurement HDFS 6032) and two new doctoral courses in Modeling (HDFS 7033) and Extant Data Analysis (HDFS 7034). In addition, all department tenure track faculty now teach a grad class. Doctoral students are supported with 20 hours per week in assistantships during their first year. During the second year they need to find at least a 10 hour research assistantship. This has resulted in all doctoral students having at least one (and most have more) peer reviewed publication upon graduation.

Feedback from our graduation focus groups and satisfaction surveys for both undergraduate and graduate students revealed they wanted a central place to find a variety of materials related to the department. We hired a webmaster and have put the child development lab requests and all of the practicum application materials on the department website. All department handbooks and applications (practicum, lab, assistantships, etc) are now available online. This helped with both our graduate student recruiting and student satisfaction. In addition we have Facebook pages for all clubs, graduate students, and for the general department. Additionally the grad students have their own blog.