Student Learning Outcome Plots

Bonus Preview Session example (with fake data)

Authors
Affiliations

David Eubanks

Furman University Institutional Assessment & Research

Scott Moore

Furman University Center for Innovative Leadership

Published

October 22, 2024

1 Extract the data

1.1 Read it

Read in the sample learning outcome data. There are two assessments per student. Both of these are applied university-wide.

slo = read_csv("data/slo_fake_data_v2.csv")

1.2 Describe it

Each record consists of six pieces of data:

  • internal_student_id: the random student ID that does not identify the student in the real world but merely indicates which two records represent the same student
  • gender_identifier: the gender of the student; can take values M (male), F, (female), and O (other)
  • race_ethnicity_code: this identifies the race/ethnicity of the student:
  • school_class_identifier: this identifies the class of the student: 1 (freshman), 2 (sophomore), 3 (junior), 4 (senior); no other values are allowed
  • Skill: the skill being measured for a particular student. It is either U_EFFORT (classroom effort) or U_WRITE (writing effectiveness). More on this below in Section 1.3.
  • Rating: the rating of that particular skill for that student. Again, more on this below in Section 1.3.

1.3 The Learning Outcomes

1.3.1 Description

Discipline Writing (U_WRITE)

Writing effectiveness in the style most appropriate to the course, including knowledge of conventions.

Effort (U_EFFORT)

How much effort do you think the student put into the class?

1.3.2 Scales

The following are the abbreviated scales.

Discipline Writing (U_WRITE)
  • 0-Remedial: The student is not demonstrating the skill or knowledge sophistication that aligns with the Furman expectation of entering college students.
  • 4-Ready to graduate: The student demonstrates the level of competency we expect of our graduates.
Effort (U_EFFORT)
  • 0-Little effort: The student seemed to put in a minimal amount of work
  • 2-Outstanding effort: The student went above and beyond expectations

1.4 See the data

To get an idea of the data that has been read in, here are the first six rows of the table.

slo |> head(6)
internal_student_id gender_identifier race_ethnicity_code school_class_identifier Skill Rating
384NWN M WHITE 2 U_WRITE 3
384NWN M WHITE 2 U_EFFORT 0
N7YNFY F WHITE 1 U_WRITE 3
N7YNFY F WHITE 1 U_EFFORT 0
2M2XG6 F WHITE 1 U_WRITE 3
2M2XG6 F WHITE 1 U_EFFORT 1

2 Investigation

2.1 Averages for each outcome

Take a quick look at the data to see what the results look like numerically.

slo |> 
  group_by(Skill) |> 
  summarize(Mean = mean(Rating, na.rm=TRUE)) |>
  kable(digits = 3,
        caption = "Averages for each outcome")
Averages for each outcome
Skill Mean
Classroom effort 0.849
Writing effectiveness 2.217

2.2 Overall count by response

slo |>
  group_by(Skill, Rating) |>
  summarize(Count = n()) |>
  kable(caption = "Number of responses for each outcome")
Number of responses for each outcome
Skill Rating Count
Classroom effort 0 1804
Classroom effort 1 2148
Classroom effort 2 1048
Writing effectiveness 0 534
Writing effectiveness 1 1011
Writing effectiveness 2 1315
Writing effectiveness 3 1116
Writing effectiveness 4 1024

2.3 Average response by gender

slo |>
  filter(!is.na(Gender)) |>
  group_by(Skill, Gender) |>
  summarize(Avg = mean(Rating, na.rm = TRUE)) |>
  select(Skill, Gender, Avg) |>
  kable(digits = 3,
        caption = "Average responses by Skill by Gender")
Average responses by Skill by Gender
Skill Gender Avg
Classroom effort Female 0.850
Classroom effort Male 0.846
Classroom effort Other 0.886
Writing effectiveness Female 2.353
Writing effectiveness Male 2.059
Writing effectiveness Other 2.455

2.4 Average response by race

slo |>
  filter(!is.na(RaceCode)) |>
  group_by(Skill, RaceCode) |>
  summarize(Avg = mean(Rating, na.rm = TRUE)) |>
  select(Skill, RaceCode, Avg) |>
  kable(digits = 3,
        caption = "Average responses by Skill by Race")
Average responses by Skill by Race
Skill RaceCode Avg
Classroom effort AIAN 0.937
Classroom effort ASIAN 0.874
Classroom effort BAA 0.842
Classroom effort HISLAT 0.824
Classroom effort NHOPI 1.065
Classroom effort TWOM 0.696
Classroom effort WHITE 0.858
Writing effectiveness AIAN 1.911
Writing effectiveness ASIAN 2.265
Writing effectiveness BAA 2.141
Writing effectiveness HISLAT 2.285
Writing effectiveness NHOPI 2.065
Writing effectiveness TWOM 2.193
Writing effectiveness WHITE 2.218

2.5 Average response by class

slo |>
  filter(!is.na(Class)) |>
  group_by(Skill, Class) |>
  summarize(Avg = mean(Rating, na.rm = TRUE)) |>
  select(Skill, Class, Avg) |>
  kable(digits = 3,
        caption = "Average responses by Skill by Class")
Average responses by Skill by Class
Skill Class Avg
Classroom effort Fresh 0.852
Classroom effort Soph 0.828
Classroom effort Jr 0.866
Classroom effort Sr 0.851
Writing effectiveness Fresh 1.908
Writing effectiveness Soph 2.113
Writing effectiveness Jr 2.366
Writing effectiveness Sr 2.494