Department of Communication, June 2020
Program Assessment Goal #1: Understand Communication as a Social Science
1a. Students will understand the nature, origin, and general focus of Communication as an interdisciplinary, evidence-based, and social-scientific discipline.
1b. Students will learn to write in a social-scientific manner, especially as it applies to Communication (e.g., lit reviews, justifying RQs and Hypotheses, etc.)
1c. Students will learn the ethics of social-science research (e.g., IRB test)
1d. Students will understand the career pathways in the discipline of Communication.
Program Assessment Goal #2: Understand and Apply Principles of Communication
2a. Students will be able to understand and explain theories, principles, models, and/or perspectives that have been developed and applied to the social-scientific study of Communication.
2b. Students will be able to employ Communication theories, principles, models, and/or perspectives to formulate ethical research questions.
Program Assessment Goal #3: Understand and Apply Methods of Communication
3a. Students will be able to select and use appropriate (evidence-based) qualitative and quantitative methods to conduct audience analysis as a foundation for effective message creation.
3b. Students will be able to select and use appropriate (evidence-based) qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate the effect of messages on audiences, including knowledge gain, attitude change, and behavior change.
3c. Students will be able to select and use appropriate (evidence-based) qualitative and quantitative methods to describe and assess discourse practices in informal and public settings, identify, formulate and propose interventions to improve processes and outcomes.
Program Assessment Goal #4: Understand how Different World Views affect Communication
4a. Students will understand the concept of diversity.
4b. Students will understand and explain how diversity – or different world views defined broadly (e.g., race/ethnicity, sex/gender, age, socio-economic, political, etc.) – affect processes of communication