Criminal Justice Exit Exam E Criminal Justice Essay

Criminal Justice Exit Exam

e Criminal Justice Department graduating seniors an exit exam a measure departmental learning outcomes. How tool determine criminal justice major effective? Original responses substantial significant supported additional scholarly reference textbook.

The Criminal Justice Department has been asking graduating seniors to take an exit exam as a measure of departmental learning outcomes. How could that tool be used to determine if the criminal justice major is effective?

According to Lightfoot & Doerner (2007), despite the considerable expenditure of attending a university, little is known about the relative success of criminal justice majors in preparing students for future careers. The dropout rate for social science degrees is 50%, compared with 10% for students in the humanities and the time-to-degree rate of program completion has increased for all students, in all majors (Lightfoot & Doerner 2007:114). Asking students to take an exit exam is problematic, because, by definition, the students who have 'made it' throughout their four years of schooling have attained some level of success. Students who fail to find support within the major as undergraduates will not be counted.

Another obvious problem with using an exit interview as a measure of the success of the program is that it does not take into consideration the successful advancement of the program graduates in the workforce, either immediately after graduation or later on, over the years. The utility of the degree cannot be measured in students' grades alone on any kind of academic assessment. Of course, there are students who may have been successful, regardless of the major they chose. But if students with the major are able to obtain work both within the field and outside of it and sustain that vocational success over time, this is one measure of the effectiveness of the degree, particularly given that the degree is a practical social sciences major, constructed with an intention of preparing students for working in the 'real world' of the justice system, rather than training them in theory.

The content of an exit exam would also be difficult to determine, given that students have extremely diverse backgrounds within the major. Some students may focus on forensics, while others may be training to be corrections officers. Agreeing as to what constituted an acceptable base of knowledge would…