Examples of Funded Assessment Mini-
Grant Proposals
These sample proposals are provided with the express permission of the grant recipients. They are
intended to serve as examples of previously funded proposals and provide information about the types
of projects that have been funded in the past as well as different approaches to writing a successful
proposal. Proposals are scored using a standardized rubric by a team of independent reviewers. All
proposals that meet the funding criteria are considered, with funding based on a composite score,
moving from the highest to lowest scores, until all funds have been allocated.
Contents
1. Arts Assessment for First-Year Foundation Students – Kris Heintz Nelson, Associate Professor
and Interim Foundations Coordinator, School of Art and Design
2. The Beating Heart of CHE: An in depth study of first year programming on belonging, college
expectations, and first-year academic outcomes – Shawanna Kimbrough-Hayward, Director,
Center for Human Enrichment
3. The Critical Role of Cultural Centers at UNC: Understanding How Students Perceive and Utilize
Cultural Center Resources – Talia Carroll, Director, Marcus Garvey Cultural Center
4. Refining Assessment of Community Engaged Learning: Documenting student knowledge and
attitudes in courses coded with the Community Engaged Learning Designation – Deborah
Romero, Professor, College of Education, and Director, Office of Engagement
5. Assessing the Impact of Interactive Course Activities on Students’ Perceived Learning and
Persistence in Online Courses – Chia-Lin Tsai, Assistant Professor, Applied Statistics and
Research Methods
Talia K. Carroll
Director, Marcus Garvey Cultural Center
970-351-1159
I
The Critical Role of Cultural Centers at UNC:
Understanding How Students Perceive and Utilize Cultural Center Resources
Talia K. Carroll, M.Ed.
Director
Marcus Garvey Cultural Center
Fleurette King, M.A.
Assistant Vice President
Equity and Inclusion
Narrative
Purpose of the project
The role and purpose of the four race and ethnic based cultural centers at the
University of Northern Colorado (UNC)is well-known to some, while shrouded in
mystery to others. The Marcus Garvey Cultural Center, Cesar Chavez Cultural Center,
Native American Student Services, and ASian/Pacific American Student Services
collectively have existed for over 30 years. The first race/ethnic based cultural
center was the Marcus Garvey Cultural Center, having been founded on February 1,
1983. It was founded as a result of student activism, with the students identifying a
need for greater support and resources for students who identified as Black or
African American.
The purpose of the project is to learn from students what they know about the
cultural centers, how they experience the cultural centers and their leadership, gain
a better understanding of what students know about the specific mission, vision,
and values ofthe Centers, and how, if at all, the Centers meet their needs. Research
on cultural centers is growing, as one author shared, "in addition to providing
countless programs and services, culture centers are instrumental in providing a
sense of belonging and aiding in skill development for some students," (Sanders,
2016).
Byassessing how students perceive and utilize the Centers, the cultural center
directors have the opportunity to refine outreach practices on campus, define
programming that is well-suited for the student population, and potentially
advocate for the necessary resources to better support the students (Patton, 2010).
Goals of the Project
The primary goals of this project are to:
1. Provide an opportunity to students about the mission, vision, and values of
the cultural centers - to ensure alignment between what their perspectives
are and the work that cultural center leadership engages in on their behalf
2. Provide insight and perspective into how students perceive and utilize
cultural centers as a means to inform data-driven guidance for future work
for cultural centers
3. Provide directors with perspectives from students who may not regularly
utilize the Centers
4. Learn what students perceive as their needs or wants in regard to cultural
center activities and support
University of Northern Colorado
I
Assessment mini-grant (FY2019) 2
Timeline of Major Tasks
May, 2018
June - July, 2018
August - September 2018
October - November, 2018
December, 2018
Institutional Review Board Application
Paper survey for incoming, first-year students
Recruiting focus group participants
Focus Groups and Individual Interviews
Send recordings to external transcription
company
Data analysis
Write report, present findings at NASPA
Submit final report to Dr. Kim Black
January - February, 2019
March - April, 2019
May, 2019
This timeline is an ideal one, though there may be shifts depending on availability of
students to engage in the focus groups. In addition, given the director's schedule,
this timeline allows some flexibility for unanticipated shifts in availability.
Plans for Disseminating Results
The plans for disseminating results will unfold in three parts. The plans for
disseminating results are as follows with the understanding that any on-campus
opportunities to share results will also be considered:
First: a half-day professional development workshop will be planned for the cultural
center directors to review the data and discuss how to best move forward with
understanding and implementing data
Third: results will be presented at a national student affairs conference or the
National Conference on Race and Ethnicity
Third: results will be written up and submitted as a paper to the Journal of Diversity
in Higher Education or Student Affairs Research and Practice by the end of summer,
2019. The article will either be single-authored or co-authored with another cultural
center director.
Budget narrative
How funds will be spent
A significant portion of the funds will be used to secure one undergraduate or
graduate student to assist with the focus groups and analysis of the data. The
student support will be prioritized throughout the academic year.
To ensure adequate knowledge heading into the project, the funds will also be used
to purchase three books that focus on student development, focus group interviews,
and assessment in student affairs.
Finally, the remaining funds will be used for official functions to pay for food for the
focus groups and director interviews.
University of Northern Colorado
I
Assessment mini-grant (FY2019) 3
Other funding sources
At the time of submission, the other funding source
will
be the Marcus Garvey
Cultural Center. The funds, a maximum of $150.00, will be used to offset any
expenses that cannot be covered by the mini-grant maximum allocation. It is
anticipated that the cost for transcription will be high given the use of focus groups
as the primary form of data collection. So, funds will likely be directed to that
particular need.
Budget
Detailed Description
Amount
Student Development in College: Theory, Research, and Practice
$52.00
Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research
$62.00
Undergraduate or graduate student hourly for assistance with
$765.00
project (75 hours
@
$10.20/hour) over two semesters
Assessment in Student Affairs Book
$51.00
Official Function - Refreshments for Focus Groups for fall and
$200.00
spring semesters
Transcription Services from The Lai
$220.00
Official Functions - Individual interview and lunch with the three $100.00
race/ethnic based cultural center directors
Raffle for focus group participants (2, $25 gift bundles)
$50.00
TOTAL
$1500.00
References
Patton, L.
D.
(2010). On solid ground: An examination of the successful strategies
and positive student outcomes of two Black culture centers. In L. D. Patton
(Ed.), Culture centers in higher education: Perspectives on identity, theory,
and practice (63-82). Sterling, VA:Stylus.
Sanders, K. N. (2016). Black culture centers: A review of pertinent literature. Urban
Education Research
&
Policy Annuals, 4(1).
University of Northern Colorado
I
Assessment mini-grant (FY2019) 4
Assessment Grant 2018
Cover Page
Project Title:
Refining Assessment of Community Engaged Learning: Documenting student knowledge and
attitudes in courses coded with the Community Engaged Learning Designation
Project Leader: Deborah Romero, Ph.D.
Michener L59,
Deborah.romero@unco.edu
Professor, College of Education
Director Office of Engagement, Academic Affairs
Team Members:
Annie Epperson,
Faculty University Libraries,
Associate Director, Office of Engagement
Melissa Lafferty
Graduate Assistant
Office of Engagement
Signed Project Leader:________________________________
Refining Assessment of Community Engaged Learning Office of Engagement!
1!
Project Narrative
Overview
This mini grant is designed to replicate and extend the Office of Engagement’s ongoing work to
document and understand the impact of students’ community engaged learning (CEL)
experiences in the academic curriculum. Specifically, the grant will support community-engaged
pedagogies and instructional activities for faculty who are teaching courses that have received
the CEL attribute course designation during 2017. In addition, the grant will provide resources
for faculty professional development and instructional material development, and assist in the
facilitation of continued assessment, including focus group forums with students and faculty.
Purpose and Goals of the Project
The Office of Engagement (OE) at UNC has in its mission to support and develop community
engaged learning (CEL) for faculty and students. Work undertaken through a mini grant last year
(2017-2018) allowed the office to dedicate resources to begin to assess student learning in
community engaged projects, and to further support and understand faculty investment in this
work. This research focused on determining areas of strength and opportunities for growth,
including faculty perspectives on student learning, areas for additional support in engaged
pedagogies, and gathering more direct indicators on the meaning and impact of community
engaged learning for students.
One of the successes and preliminary findings from this work advanced a formalized assessment
tool in the form of student prompts that could be used by faculty to elicit written feedback related
to learning and reflections from the community engaged experiences. We also developed a
Qualtrics survey to gauge to student learning based on the Social Justice Scale (Torres-Harding,
Siers, & Olson, 2012). However, we discovered that the deployment of the survey in the courses
was a challenge when not required as part of course activities. This is an area that we plan to
revisit, and to explore other survey options, including the Community Based Learning Student
Survey (Gelmon, Holland, Driscoll, Spring, & Kerrigan, 2001). We also successfully conducted
focus groups with students and provided refreshments through the grant. We also learned from
faculty that two of the challenges with community engaged pedagogies relate to time and costs,
especially those associated with student projects and engaged learning activities.
At the same time that we have been strengthening our approaches to student assessment, we have
also launched the elective Community Engaged Learning (CEL) course attribute designation.
The CEL designation recognizes faculty and those courses in which teaching and learning
integrate academic content into students’ engagement with the community, both in and out of the
classroom. Community refers broadly to include public, private, non-profit, educational entities,
governmental agencies, businesses, and other organizations external to UNC. Effective
community engaged learning is grounded in the following criteria:
• Participatory and Structured Pedagogies: CEL provides a structured opportunity for
students to participate in community-engaged activities in order to extend course content
and/or gain further understanding of course content and concepts.
• Mutually Beneficial Exchange: Student learning outcomes and community needs/goals
through collaborative development of course content and experiential learning
opportunity.
Refining Assessment of Community Engaged Learning Office of Engagement!
2!
• Reflection and Assessment: CEL engages students in structured preparation for,
participation in, and reflection on the community-engaged experience.
• Community Impact: Demonstrates effort to identify or address a community need/issue,
public or private.
Since launching this designation, faculty-teaching courses in the Colleges of Natural Health
Sciences, Education and Behavioral Sciences, and Performing and Visual Arts, have applied and
received the designation. This proposal and mini grant would be specifically dedicated to allow
the Office of Engagement to work collaboratively with faculty to revise existing CEL assessment
measures and approaches, and to deploy these in meaningful ways in courses designated with
CEL. The assessment grant would provide support for faculty and their students who are in CEL
designated courses and allow refinement and revision of additional in-class assessments of
student responses to community engaged learning, and its impact on their learning and
development.
Faculty delivering CEL undergraduate and graduate courses from each of the aforementioned
colleges have explicitly expressed, in writing to the Director of Engagement, an interest in
forming part of this inter college study of community engaged teaching and learning. To support
participation in the study, faculty would be allocated resources that could be dedicated toward
instructional activities with students, facilitation and completion of community engaged projects,
transportation for class field trips to undertake community engagement in K-12 schools,
installation or delivery of visual or artist performances, and/or support for additional data
analysis with faculty.
As the Office of Engagement continues to examine UNC institutional data (UNC Senior Survey,
2015; UNC Faculty Survey, 2017) and external educational research on high impact practices
and student success (Kuh, 2008; NSSE, 2013), we can further enhance our understanding of how
community-based learning experiences integrated in the curriculum contribute to student
learning and growth. For example, we know that findings from the HERI 2015 senior survey
indicate almost 75% of graduating students participated in some form of community based
learning during their degree. Furthermore, community engaged learning is significantly and
positively correlated with students’ desire to complete a degree, motivation for pursuing graduate
studies, and student feelings of being prepared for their future careers. Students who report at
least some community based learning experiences significantly outperform their peers on
constructs of civic engagement, positive cross-racial interaction, social agency, civic awareness,
sense of belonging at UNC, and leadership skills.
OE has received IRB exempt approval for the first iteration of this assessment project to examine
students’ learning and experiences through surveys, student journals and informal focus groups.
We anticipate that we can readily extended, or reapply for IRB, to include this additional work.
By continuing to refine our assessment methods, and work toward multipurpose assessments, we
can begin to construct a toolkit for community-engaged courses. UNC faculty and OE will be
able to assess, quantitatively and qualitatively, how community engagement impacts students.
This opportunity to work with faculty from different colleges will also allow consideration of
how different disciplines, course types, and pedagogies impact student learning. Ultimately, this
will enhance UNC’s role as a leader in understanding and promoting effective and reciprocally
beneficial community engaged learning opportunities.
Refining Assessment of Community Engaged Learning Office of Engagement!
3!
Plans for Sharing Project Results and Using Outcomes for Improvements
The Office of Engagement intends to disseminate these assessment findings at national
conferences focused primarily on academic and institutional engagement. This will further
increase UNC’s reputation not only as an engagement leader, but also as an assessment leader
and partner as well. One such forum is the Engaged Scholarship Consortium Conference, which
in 2019 will be held in Denver, Colorado.
The Office of Engagement plans to present progress and results from this assessment project at
the UNC Teaching and Learning Fair and the UNC Assessment Fair, ideally in collaboration
with faculty from the CEL courses. In addition, and time permitting, we envision facilitating on
campus panels and workshops to engage with more UNC faculty and administrators interested in
learning about the impact and opportunities afforded in community engaged learning
experiences. This is a unique way to further promote the CEL designation and the availability of
these assessment tools, and it will also be relevant as we move forward with our institutional
self-assessment and establish the foundations for the next round of the Carnegie Foundation for
Teaching and Learning classification as a Community Engaged Campus, 2025.
Timeline of Major Tasks and Activities
Start Date: July 1
st
2018 End Date: June 30
th
2019
This study will expand upon ongoing assessment efforts, and therefore we anticipate that we will
have some baseline data by the end of the spring 2018 semester. This mini grant will enable the
next phase of assessment, including refinement and revisions of methods used this past year.
o Summer 2018: Contact faculty with CEL courses for participation.
o August 2018: Work with faculty to identify engaged learning components, including
assessment of student learning outcomes
o September 2018: Students complete Pre-assessment Survey and Journal#1
o October 2018: Student focus group; host or visit with students from at least two CEL
courses
o November 2018: Community engaged learning at UNC Community Engaged Scholars
Forum, open to public & UNC
o December 2018: Students complete Post-assessment Survey. Debrief with faculty on
community engaged learning components, including assessment of student learning and
faculty perspectives.
o January 2019: Begin analysis of fall 2018 data.
o February 2019: Invite Faculty to collaborate with OE to present advances of CEL
Assessment Study at UNC Assessment Fair
o March 2019: Write up initial findings and submit collaborative proposal to the Engaged
Scholarship Consortium (ESC) Conference (Denver, 2019)
o April-May 2019: Data analysis and final presentation development for ESC conference
o June 2019: Final Report to Office of Assessment
Refining Assessment of Community Engaged Learning Office of Engagement!
4!
Budget Narrative 2018-2019
The mini assessment grant will support the assessment of community engaged learning in UNC
Courses with the CEL designation in the following ways:
Description
Amount
Community Engaged Learning: supplies for course and project development
and/or implementation. (i.e. materials, printing, start-up needs)
4 CEL Courses (4 x $250)
$1000
Official functions: light refreshments for focus groups with students and
faculty (4 X $25)
$100
Community engaged learning products or deliverables resulting from study
(printing posters, fliers, infographics)
$200
Professional Development Support for Engaged Faculty at the Engaged
Scholarship Consortium Conference 2019
$200
Total
$1500
Project Narrative
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of the project is to improve online teaching and students’ learning experience.
Specifically, this project focuses on assessing the impact of interactive course activities on students’
perceived learning and persistence in online courses.
Background
Online learning has become a popular modality for learners to gain knowledge in the past decade.
According to a recent enrollment report from WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)
1
,
in the U.S. the number of students taking at least one distance/online education course had grown from 1.6
million in 2002 to 5.8 million in 2014. Although an online environment allows learning to take place anytime
and anywhere, it presents several unique barriers to student success, including lack of instructor feedback,
missing student-student interaction, and technical problems with online learning tools
2
. Other studies have
found that a high dropout rate among online learning students
3
and that many students finish an online course
with low satisfaction
4
.
One way to explain such phenomenon was through Tinto’s student retention model
5
, which
highlights the importance of academic integration (e.g., grade, enjoy learning) and social integration (e.g.,
working together with peers). Online learners’ interaction with the instructor and classmates are critical to
their academic and social integration. Findings from empirical studies suggested that instructor feedback and
accessibility are positively associated with students’ learning
satisfaction and persistence
6
. Consistently, interaction
between students was recognized as a key component to a
positive learning environment and deeper understanding of
the subject for online students
7
.
Three types of interaction are commonly discussed in
the online learning literature: student-instructor (S-I)
interaction, student-student (S-S) interaction, and student-
content (S-C) interaction. In this study, interactive course
activities are defined as activities that provide a structure to
promote the communication between students and the
instructor and among students (e.g., online discussion board,
instructor feedback, group projects, peer feedback, and
collaborative information sharing). These interactive course
activities could foster a learning environment with increased
1
Poulin, R. and Straut, T. (2016).WCET Distance Education Enrollment Report 2016. Retrieved from WICHE Cooperative for
Educational Technologies website: http://wcet.wiche.edu/initiatives/research/WCET-Distance-Education-Enrollment-Report-2016
2
Berge, Z. L., Muilenburg, L. Y., & Haneghan, J. V. (2002). Barriers to distance education and training: Survey results. The
Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(4), 409-418.
3 Meister, J. (2002). Pillars of e-learning success. New York, NY: Corporate University Xchange.
4 Yukselturk, E., Ozekes, S., Türel, Y.: Predicting dropout student: an application of data mining methods in an online education
program. Eur. J. Open Distance E-Learn. 17(1), 118–133 (2014)
5 Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. (2nd ed.).Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
6 Rhode, J. (2009). Interaction equivalency in self-paced online learning environments: An exploration of learner preferences. The
international review of research in open and distributed learning, 10(1).
7
Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and
collaboration. Distance education, 27(2), 139-153.
Interactive course activities refer to the course
activities that promote:
S-I interaction: e.g., instructor feedback via
comments on the assignments, Emails, or
discussion board.
S-S interaction: e.g., group projects, collective
information sharing, peer feedback, and group
discussion.
Non-interactive course activities refer to the
course activities that focus on:
S-C interaction: e.g., lecture notes, online
resources, reading assignments, and exams.
peer support and guidance from the instructor, which are essential factors to students’ persistence in online
courses
8
. More importantly, students become active learners when participating in interactive course
activities.
At the UNC, during fall 2017, 18% of the undergraduate and 46% of the graduate students enrolled in
at least one distance/online course
9
. This study aims to assess the usage of different online course activities at
UNC, and explore how interactive course activities impact online students’ perceived learning and
persistence. By perceived learning, we refer to students’ expected grade, knowledge gain, and learning
satisfaction. By persistence, we refer to students’ course completion.
Research Questions
1) RQ1: What is the current usage of different course activities, including interactive and non-interactive
activities, in online courses at UNC?
2) RQ2: What are the distinct types of online learning environment based on instructors’ usage of different
course activities?
3) RQ3: Do students in a more interactive online learning environment have higher perceived learning (i.e.,
expected grade, knowledge, and learning satisfaction) and persistence (i.e. course completion rate)?
Participants
We plant to survey graduate and undergraduate students taking at least one online course during fall
2018. We will request email address of the students who meet the above criteria from the Office of
Assessment. We will use these email addresses to recruit participants. Participants will be asked to complete
an online survey in November 2018. Upon completion of the survey, participants will have a chance to win a
monetary gift in a drawing (six $50 gift cards).
Data Sources
Course Activities. This information will be collected using an online survey. Participants will be
given a list of course activities that involve student-instructor, student-student, or student-content interaction.
Participants will be asked to identify how frequently each course activity is used by the instructor in the
online course they enroll. Participants who take more than one online courses will be asked to provide their
responses based on only one online course.
Perceived Learning. This information will be collected using an online survey. Participants will be
asked to respond to questions related to their expected grade, perception of knowledge gain, and learning
satisfaction. We will use these three variables as a proxy for students' learning outcome.
Students’ Persistence. We plan to request students’ course completion data from the Office of
Institutional Reporting and Analysis Services (IRAS). We plan to provide participants’ email address to the
IRAS for matching their record. We will use de-identified data from IRAS in this part of the analysis.
In addition, we will collect students’ demographic variables (e.g., gender, ethnicity, first-generation
status, and graduate/undergraduate) and online course information (e.g., required/ elective and number of
credit hours). We will also include questions related to students’ course engagement and online learning self-
efficacy in the survey. Although not the primary focus of the study, these social-cognitive variables will be
analyzed to provide a potential explanation of the impact of interactive course activities on students.
8
Hart, C. (2012). Factors associated with student persistence in an online program of study: A review of the literature. Journal of
Interactive Online Learning, 11 (1), 19-42.
9
UNC 2017 Fall Enrollment Profile: http://www.unco.edu/institutional-reporting-analysis-services/pdf/enrollment-
stats/Fall2017Final.pdf
Data Analysis
We will report descriptive statistics and correlations for all the variables. We will use a Latent Profile
Analysis (LPA) to classify participants into different subgroups of online learning environment based on
instructors’ usage of different course activities (see Figure below). After different subgroups are identified,
we will exam the differences in outcome variables among the subgroups. We hypothesize that participants in
a more interactive online learning environment would have higher levels of perceived learning and
persistence.
Timeline of Major Tasks and Activities
Project Activities Timeline
1
s
t
Assessment planning meeting May 2018
Identify instruments and finalize survey June 2018
Prepare questionnaire and consent form July 2018
Obtain IRB approval August 2018
Obtain students’ email address from the Office of Assessment September 2018
Data collection through an online survey (4 weeks) November 2018
Incentive drawing for the participants December 2018
Download data for cleaning and preliminary analysis January 2019
Request course completion data from the IRAS February 2019
Prepare presentation for the 2019 UNC Annual Assessment Fair March 2019
Data analysis and conference proposal writing April – July 2019
Submit a brief report to the Office of Assessment July 2019
Plans for Sharing Project Results and Using Outcomes for Improvement Purposes
Results of the project will be shared with two key audiences – instructors who teach online courses and
researchers who wish to conduct studies related to online learning. We will submit a research proposal to a
national conference, such as American Educational Research Association (AERA) or Association for
Educational Communication and Technology (AECT). We will also write a manuscript for journal
publication.
0
1
2
3
4
5
Course Activiteis
/(S-I) Interaction
Course Activities
/ (S-S) Interaction
Course Activities
/(S-C) Interaction
Average Usage
Example Results from the LPA
Subgroup A
Subgroup B
Subgroup C
SubgroupAexhibitinghigh
usageofcourseactivitiesthat
promoteS‐IandS‐Sinteraction.
SubgroupBexhibitinghigh
usageofcourseactivitiesthat
promoteS‐IandS‐Cinteraction.
SubgroupCexhibitinglowusage
ofcourseactivitiesthat
promotesS‐IandS‐S
interaction.
Interactive
Non- Interactive
Budget Narrative
Description Amount
Assessment planning meetings (i.e., lunch for two researchers) (4 meetings * $30) $120
Hourly student employment to assist with data collection (1 student x 30 hrs x $15/hr) $450
Incentive drawing for survey participants (6 x $50 gift card) $300
Professional development – For one researcher to attend the learning analytics summer
training (June 2019) in Ann Arbor, MI (training registration: $300; travel: $250)
$550
Resources (e.g., books) $80
Total $1500
