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Evaluator's Report In September 1997, an external evaluator (Larisa M. Naples) was hired to document and conduct outcomes-assessments for three of the courses described in the Carnegie Mellon RAIRE proposal (Rapid Design, the Mellon College of Science's Freshman Seminar, and Experimental Techniques in Molecular Biology), as well as for Carnegie Mellon's Undergraduate Research Initiative (URI). Whereas the 1997-98 evaluation effort focused on planning and preparing for data-gathering, developing instruments, and beginning the data-gathering process for the Rapid Design class, this year the focus was on completing the bulk of the data collection, and preliminary analytic tasks. Early in the 1998-99 school year, the evaluator met several times with the course designers for the Freshman Seminar and Molecular Biology courses, as well as with the URI director, to develop the detailed, outcomes-definitions needed for the development of assessment instruments. Using this information, assessment instruments were designed for each of these courses and initiatives, to be administered in the next semester during which each is offered. Data collection during the 1998-99 school year involved extensive classroom observations of the Freshman Seminar and Molecular Biology courses, to gather information regarding the facilities and materials required, educational objectives, learning-activities and assignments, role of teacher, and nature of student interactions and responsibilities. In addition, archival materials such as course syllabi, handouts, and such were collected for each of the courses. Structured interviews were also conducted with course instructors, and with samples of students (approximately 12 students from each course, for a total of 32 student interviews), to triangulate on the archival and field-observation data. For the undergraduate research initiative, which not easily observed in practice, ten sets of in-depth interviews were conducted of all student-researcher(s) and corresponding faculty research-advisor(s) (a total of 25 interviews), for undergraduate research projects selected to provide a variety of interview-based case-studies of URI activities. Finally, the assessment instruments designed in 1997-98 for the Rapid Design course were administered during this school year, completing the data-gathering for that course. Preliminary analytic tasks completed this year include the transcription of all interviews and field observations, and thematic coding of the same, according to the foci identified in the preliminary data analyses completed in the 1997-98 school year. Evaluation tasks remaining for next year include: administering the assessment instruments for the remaining courses and completing the analysis and documentation of these data sets, for the four RAIRE activities which are the focus of this evaluation. [Previous Page] [Next Page] |