Running head: WSU SPORT CLUB ASSESSMENT PLAN 1

WSU Sport Club Assessment Plan

Stephanie Swigart

Wright State University

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I. INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The following is a proposed assessment plan for the Sports Club program under the Office of

Campus Recreation at Wright State University. As the Marketing Graduate Assistant for the

Student Union Administrative Office, I have often collaborated with the Competitive Sports

Assistant Director, Billy Willis on projects for promotion of both intramurals and sports clubs.

Billy and I sat down for a meeting in order to discuss what has been done in the past in regards to

assessment and ways in which he would like to use assessment to inform his practice in the

future.

When it comes to assessment of sports clubs and intramurals, Billy stated that not much has

been done thus far regrettably. However, Campus Recreation had started to collect data since

last May on the GPAs and grades of sport club participants through the Wright State Research

Institute. This information was collected with the purpose of finding ways to improve retention

of their student athletes. Billy stated that so far, only the football club has used this information

to improve their practices.

One other assessment was administered via email to all intramural participants in the flag

football, soccer and sand volleyball programs. This was a Qualtrics survey designed to measure

customer service for internal improvement purposes. Of 434 surveys sent out, only 27 responses

were received.

Billy stated that he would really like to see more assessment for his programs but finds it

challenging due to lack of manpower and time. However, with the new appointment of Gary

Dickstein as the Assistant Vice-President for Student Affairs, Billy stated that there has been a

push for improving assessment efforts. After discussing possible directions for this particular
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assessment plan, it was decided that the best place to start would be with the Sports Club

program. In particular, we wanted to focus on the Student Leaders within the Sports Club

programs. We felt that this would be a good place to start in terms of ramping up assessment

efforts due to the fact that these are the students with which Billy has the most interaction.

There are currently 20 sports clubs in existence. They are badminton, baseball, bowling,

cheerleading, football, golf, gymnastics, hockey, karate, kick boxing, mens rugby, womens

rugby, ski & board, slackliners, mens soccer, womens soccer, swimming, squash club, ultimate

frisbee and womens volleyball. Each club must be registered with Orgsync and must have a

President and Treasurer. Some clubs have additional leadership positions available (like co-

president) but only the President and Treasurer positions are mandated.

The Sport Club Council is student-run umbrella organization that is overseen by Billy Willis.

The Council governs all sports clubs and holds monthly meetings in which leadership must

attend at least 3 of the 4 meetings per semester. The initial meeting during the beginning of the

fall semester is mandated and serves the main purpose of understanding policies/procedures and

getting to know their supervisor, Billy Willis. The remainder of the Sports Council meetings are

run by the President and Treasurer of the Sports Club Council and include development

opportunities. For instance, the last Sports Club Council meeting featured a guest speaker that

came in to talk about leadership.

II. RATIONALE/GOALS/MISSION

Institution: Wright State University

Institutional Mission:

We transform the lives of our students and the communities we serve.

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We will:

build a solid foundation for student success at all levels through high-quality, innovative
programs;

conduct scholarly research and creative endeavors that impact quality of life;

engage in meaningful community service;

drive the economic revitalization of our region and our state and empower all of our
students, faculty, staff, and alumni to develop professionally, intellectually, and
personally.

Office: Campus Recreation

Campus Recreation Mission:

We are committed to providing exceptional facilities, programs, and services to create

recreational and wellness opportunities that promote a healthier and happier Wright State family.

Vision:

We will be a vital component of the total development and well-being of the Wright State
community.

Values:

Serving, Leading, Living, Learning, Caring, Sharing, Growing, Including, Playing, Having Fun

Program: Sports Club

Sports Club Mission:

The Sport Club Program provides the opportunity to university students for recreation,
competition, and instruction in a variety of active pursuits. Each club is responsible for its own
governing and organization, allowing for student leadership development and growth.

Rationale of how proposed assessment relates to the program and office mission
According to Terrell Stayhorn (2006), Programs and services must identify relevant and

desirable student learning and development outcomes and provide programs and services that

encourage the achievement of those outcomes (p. 1). This assessment plan relates to the
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program and office mission by focusing on one of the sixteen desirable student learning and

development outcomes identified by Strayhorn. That outcome is leadership development.

As you can see from the conceptual map in the following section, a common thread

linking institutional mission to program mission is leadership development that allows Wright

State students to grow both personally and professionally.

The Student Learning Outcomes Assessment detailed in this plan relates to leadership

development by directly observing if the leadership participants are able to demonstrate the

learning objective identified in the beginning of the Student Council fall meeting.

The Needs Assessment also detailed in this plan relates to the program mission by

identifying which leadership skills sports club participants need the most help with so that

appropriate programmatic choices can be made for future sports club meetings.

Conceptual Map:
ASK Standard 1: Ability to map (Maki, 2004) or establish conceptual connections from

institutional mission, to divisional mission, to program/unit mission such that program/unit goals

for student learning are consistent with institutional mission (American College Personnel

Association, 2007, p. 4).

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III. MEASURING PARTICIPATION/TRACKING

In order to track participation for the Sports Club Council Meetings, the current procedure

being used is a sign-in sheet. The sign-in sheet has two columns which ask for the name of the

student and the name of the club to which they belong.

Being that student leaders are required to attend at least three of the four Sport Club Council

meetings per semester, this method has worked quite well since the sign-up sheet is how they

demonstrate that they have fulfilled this requirement.

Since this is a relatively small group of students to track, we did not feel that there needed to

be any additional methods of tracking put into place. Additionally, there is already demographic
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and other information on file for each student due to their appointed positions so no additional

variables need to be accounted for.

IV. ASSESSMENT OF STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

For the assessment of student learning outcomes, there will be a direct observation of

learning based upon the proposed learning objectives for the initial fall meeting. As stated earlier,

the initial fall meeting is mandatory for all sport club leadership. The two main purposes of this

meeting are to ensure leaders understand policy/procedures and to get to know Billy Willis.

Being that this assessment is very specific to the purposes and goals of Sports Club Council

meeting, a new instrument must be created. This instrument would be administered at the end of

the initial fall meeting to determine if student-learning outcomes were reached. One of the

learning outcomes would be:

Sports Club Leaders who participate in the initial fall Student Sport Club Council meeting

will be able to articulate the necessary steps of the Sport Club travel procedure of Wright State

University.

Travel is a major component of the Sport Club program. The responsibility to successfully

coordinate travel efforts will fall upon the President and Treasurer of each Sport Club. It is

imperative that the student leaders understand this process thoroughly as the success of their club

depends upon it.

V. OTHER ASSESSMENT: NEEDS

A second type of assessment that will be administered is a needs assessment. The purpose of

the needs assessment will be to ultimately improve overall participation in Sport Club Council

Meetings. While meetings are mandatory for student-leaders, ALL sport club participants are
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encouraged to attend since activities and guest speakers are featured that will contribute to the

development of leadership and professional development skills. Unfortunately, the attendance for

these meetings by non-leadership sport club participants is not as high as Billy would like to see

it.

As Shuh (1996) writes, one purpose of needs assessment is to plan programs or create

learning opportunities for students that will be useful and popular (p. 128). So, in order to

evaluate what types of information sport club participants would be interested in learning, a

needs based assessment will be administered. This needs assessment will be created by Billy in

collaboration with the President and Treasurer of the Sports Club Council. The assessment will

be in the form of a Qualtrics survey since that is the platform that Wright State University pays to

use.

VI. METHODS FOR DATA COLLECTION

Student Learning Outcomes:
The student learning assessment will be administered at the end of the initial Fall Sports

Club Council meeting. It will be in the format of a paper exam. This direct method will allow us

to determine what the students have learned by participating in the meeting.

A rubric will be generated in order to score how well the mastered the outlined Student

Learning Outcomes, including the one identified in section IV:

Sports Club Leaders who participate in the initial fall Student Sport Club Council meeting will

be able to articulate the necessary steps of the Sport Club travel procedure of Wright State

University.

Needs Assessment:
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The needs assessment will be administered in survey form via Qualtrics. It will be sent

out to all Sport Club participants via email. The official sports clubs rosters will provide the

names and emails necessary.

The purpose of the assessment will be clearly stated in all emails. As Shuh (2009)

recommends at least two or three follow-ups or reminders to nonrespondents, we will be sending

out one email to let students know that we will be sending out the survey, one email with the

actual survey, and then two follow up reminders.

Additionally, we will be utilizing the Campus Recreation social media and Orgsync in order

to remind students to participate in the survey. Finally, we will encourage the Sports Club

Student leaders to remind their teams to participate.

VII. PLAN DATA ANALYSIS

Student Learning Outcomes:
1. Administer the paper exam at the end of the intial fall Sports Club Council Meeting
2. Collect completed exams
3. Grade the completed exams using the rubric created
4. Compile all of the information into an Excel spreadsheet
5. Run analysis to determine which items on the exam had the most success and least

success.
6. Make note of which learning outcomes need improvement
7. Plan for additional training to take place regarding those specific learning outcomes
8. Make necessary changes to the training plan for next years meeting

Needs Assessment:
1. Send initial email to all sports club participants telling them of the purpose of the needs

assessment which is to guide future activities and guest speaker selection. Also, let the

recipient know when to expect to receive the survey.

2. Send out the email with the link to the needs survey.
3. Send out reminder email a couple days later
4. Send out a final email reminder with a deadline.
5. Once deadline has passed, go into Qualtrics for summary reports
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6. Use the summary reports to determine which kinds of skills students would like to work

on and which kind of activities they would like to see in future meetings
7. Meet with the President and treasurer of Sports Club Council
8. Determine the most appropriate plan of action taking into consideration available

resources and funding

9. Use the Qualtrics information for future marketing purposes (i.e. Based on your

responses, we have booked____ to come speak about____ in March!)

VIII. REPORTING OF RESULTS

As Shuh (2009) states, Once we get to the point of having an assessment project completed,

what is leftm and this is by no means an afterthought, is to make these findings available to

various stakeholders, that is people who are interested in the findings of these the assessment and

whose practice, thinking, or perspectives might be influenced by what is found (p.171).

The main purpose of these assessments are for internal improvement. As such, the most

detailed report should be compiled for use by Campus Recreation.

The Student Learning Outcomes Assessment results should be compiled into a detailed report

which would be shared with Billy Willis and the Sport Club Council Leadership so that

improvements could be made to training.

A more executive summary would be created to share with the Associate Director of

Campus Recreation, Drew Corbett and the Director of the Student Union & Campus Recreation,

Eric Corbitt. This would include an overview of the Student Learning Outcomes learned and the

ways in which the Sports Club Council is looking to make up for any deficits in learning. This

report could be used to ask for additional resources for training and to demonstrate the leadership

development taking place within the Sports Club program.

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Similarly, the Needs Assessment results should be compiled into a detailed report to be

used by Billy Willis and the Sports Club Council. The data could also be used to justify

additional resources for overall leadership development for all Sports Club participants.

References

American College Personnel Association. (2007). ASK standards: Assessment skills and
knowledge content standards for student affairs practitioners and scholars. Washington,
DC: Author.

Schuh, J.H., Upcraft, M (1996). Assessment in student affair: A Guide for Practitioners. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Schuh, J. (2009). Assessment methods for student affairs. San Francisco, California: Jossey-
Bass.

Strayhorn, T. L. (2006). Frameworks for assessing learning and development outcomes.

Washington, DC: Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS).
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