Program evaluation and improvement is an ongoing activity in the Department.
Course Evaluation: The foundation of a strong program is faculty/instructional staff who are qualified, competent, and sufficient in number to provide excellent academic and clinical preparation. Each instructor and course is evaluated by students every semester. Teacher/Course Evaluations are available to the public.
Alumni Survey:Alumni exit surveys are completed by students after finishing the graduate programs in audiology, speech-language pathology, or Deaf education. Graduates are asked to rate the content of each course taken in the program using a Likert-scale ranging from 'Not important' to 'Essential' ratings. Graduates also answer open-ended questions about the usefulness of the seminars and practica.
Employer Evaluation of Alumni: Employer evaluations are collected on graduates from during the induction year. This evaluation has three parts. The first part asks the employer to rate the teacher's/clinician's preparedness in sixteen areas. The second part asks the employer to compare the teacher/clinician to other staff members with the same position and experience. The third part is an open-ended format with questions eliciting perceived strengths and weaknesses, recommendations, and additional comments/concerns.
COMDDE teaching, clinical and research professionals participate in departmental processes that examine data and make programmatic change decisions based upon it. Full faculty meetings and division meetings (audiology, Deaf education, and speech-language pathology) are held on a monthly basis, a two-day retreat is held annually, and additional meetings are held, as needed, to resolve issues and make program decisions. At these meetings, faculty review student outcome data in addition to data from alumni surveys, employer surveys, parent and clinic patron questionnaires, placement data, enrollment data, praxis scores, and other information pertinent to needs assessments. Based on the various forms of data we routinely collect, we continuously revise our undergraduate and graduate curricula. We have developed new policies and procedures as needed, developed new programs in response to state and national personnel shortages (e.g, Online First and Second Bachelor's Degree programs), and expanded the number of externship sites available to graduate students.