Data-Based Decisions

2025-2026

Data-informed decisions. HB261, changes in expectations of higher education (career readiness, faster time until graduation), and evaluation of our own programming through past assessments and conversations with faculty, were the impetus for important changes currently taking place in the department. For example, students can now choose between lab experiences, practicum experiences, or research opportunities as they gain hands-on experience required for the major. Further, the Family Finance concentration has been dissolved and there is currently a “teach out” process to allow enrolled students to finish. Two new certificates, the Maternal and Child Health certificate and the Early Childhood certificate, have been approved by the faculty and classes within these certificates are being taught. We will file R401 documentation with the University this Fall. We anticipate the creation of more certificates and a focus on classes, which together, will allow students to earn clinical credentials, in line with goals of HB265. The undergraduate committee’s work during the 2025-2026 school year will include discussion of workforce needs and the possibility of assembling an industry advisory board to help us align our students’ skill development with industry needs. We are in the process of creating a curriculum map between our Program Objectives and specific classes to ensure that we have good coverage over our courses which may affect future course decisions. For now, we are choosing not to make any major changes to our assessment as we know our curriculum will change over the next year or more.

Annual feedback

The committee addressed much of the feedback shared by the Office and Assessment and Data Analysis after a review of the 2024-2025 assessment evaluation by Utah State University. We provided information about who is involved in assessment of the undergraduate program and included links that provide details about questions included in the assessment measures. We declined to analyze data to investigate differences between gender or racial groups. This is because we have such a small number of men and individuals from historically marginalized racial/ethnic and gender groups that the data might reveal responses that could be tied to specific students.

2024-2025

Data-informed decisions. Finalized data-based decisions will be posted at the end of the semester. Where focus groups were paused during the pandemic and reinstituted starting with the 2023-2024 cohort of graduates, data from 2019-2024 practicum student open ended questions were used to help inform focus group questions and develop a base understanding of student experience during the pandemic years. This data coupled with enrollment trends also helped inform the decision to adjust undergraduate practicum requirements.

Annual feedback. The Undergraduate Committee met with Nathan Laursen in the Office of Assessment and Data Analysis. From this meeting they reviewed past program assessment data, updated the department website to align with accreditation analysis requirements, discussed program objectives, as well as direct and indirect methods of measurement. The department addressed most of the feedback, discussed plans for making additional updates in future semesters.

2023-2024

Data-informed decisions. Using enrollment data, community needs at statewide campuses, and student interest, the Undergraduate Committee identified potential areas for growth and support. Based on this information, an Early Childhood certificate was proposed and created, working with multiple child development experts, to meet student and community needs. Also, the Gerontology Certificate faculty coordinators indicated one barrier for interested individuals to participate in the Gerontology Certificate was its status as an institutional certificate of proficiency. Based on this information, the Gerontology Certificate was changed to a certificate of proficiency, opening access to the certificate beyond the current USU student body.

Based on feedback from students and instructors, coursework redundancies were addressed and eliminated from the career-focused coursework (HDFS 2000—Careers in HDFS, HDFS 4900—Professional Development & Pre-Practicum).

Annual feedback. The Office of Data & Analytics completed a review of the HDFS assessment information. The department responded by updating the assessment portion of the website with five years of data, making notes regarding assessment processes that were paused and adaptations made for pandemic-related reasons.

2022-2023

Data-informed decisions. Because of student reports of delayed degree progress and coursework redundancy, the laboratory experiences were removed from the undergraduate curriculum requirements. The department renamed the Human Development Lifespan Emphasis to Human Development Emphasis. To address enrollment concerns and increase department visibility (noted in the department site review conducted in 2020-2021) the Undergraduate Committee increased promotion efforts including alumni highlights on our webpage and Instagram feed, concurrent enrollment visits, promotional flyers, and TV display ads.

2021-2022

Data-informed decisions. The Undergraduate Committee continued to monitor updates in the alignment of the face-to-face and online undergraduate major requirements. The committee noted mixed feedback on learning experiences, highlighting areas for reflection and improvement. They emphasized the need for more balanced course offerings, particularly within the Family and Community Services emphasis, to reduce scheduling issues. Challenges remain in offering online options for the Child Development and Family Finances emphases due to in-person training requirements.

Annual feedback. The undergraduate committee revamped the department website but could not address assessment feedback as it was not received from the Office of Analysis, Assessment, and Accreditation. The department completed a department site review.

2020-2021

Based on enrollment trends, department needs, and to better align with accreditation needs, the HDFS department discontinued the Family Life Studies online degree program coursework requirements. As part of this process, the online degree offerings changed to completely match the on-campus degree requirements. Students were given flexibility to take both online and face-to-face courses towards the same undergraduate degree requirements. This update required a change in credit hours. We also created a 1 credit hour research experience, and 1 credit hour housing lab based on faculty input.

Past Undergraduate Data-Based Decision Efforts

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.