Program Purpose

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Our Savior, Jesus Christ, was, and is, a designer. "All things were made by him" (John 1:3, 10), through design processes (Moses 3:5), design attributes (Alma 42:15), working within a design community (Abraham 4:1), and because of divine love and empathy (1 Nephi 11:13-33). 

 

In the Master's Degree program in the Instructional Psychology and Technology Department, we follow the example of the Master Designer by preparing learning and instructional design professionals who:

1. Apply doctrinal and disciplinary truths from theory and psychology to design;

2. Develop personal instructional, technical, and creative skills;

3. Understand how to manage instructional design teams and processes;

4. Support each other as a design community in helping each person achieve their divine potential; and

5. Understand empathy, agency, and love as essential to designing learning that touches hearts, inspires minds, and elevates people.

 

 

Curricular Structure

1. The program requires successful completion of 36 credit hours: 27 course work hours, 3 internship hours, plus 6 thesis hours or 6 project hours. Nineteen of the course hours are taken up by required courses dealing with empirical inquiry and statistics, instructional design, assessment of learning outcomes, and evaluation of instruction. Seven course hours are chosen in consultation with the student's committee. Three hours of internship credit are required, as well as one hour of seminar credit which is taken 1/2 hour per semester. Six credit hours are required for the completion of a thesis or a project in one of four areas: research, assessment, evaluation, or design.
2. Students are strongly encouraged to augment their in-class learning with extra-class work experience that allows them to apply principles and techniques learned in class to real projects. An internship experience involves a concentrated work experience during which classroom learning is applied and is expected to consist of the opportunity to apply a full range of learned skills in a work setting.

 

Graduate Catalog

Learning Outcomes

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To achieve the purposes of this program, students are expected to demonstrate a basic level of proficiency in instructional design, evaluation, assessment, and research. In addition, each student is expected to demonstrate a higher level of mastery in one of these areas of their own choosing by completing a project or thesis in that area.

 

Foundational Knowledge and Understanding

Demonstrate depth and breadth understanding of the fundamental principles related to instructional design, development, evaluation, assessment, and research.

Ethical and Professional Practice

Develop a personal commitment to integrate into their lives the standards of professional ethics within the field, and demonstrate a willingness to live by high standards of ethical practice consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Practical Application Skills

Demonstrate ability to complete a quality project in the field by applying knowledge and skills related to design, development, evaluation, assessment and research. 

Evidence of Learning

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Direct Measures

1. Core course GPAs and completion trends.

2. Results from internship sponsors survey and internship completion trends.

3. Advisory committees' ratings of projects and theses as presented in the candidate's oral and written defense of the M.S. project or thesis.

4. External review of a sample of student projects and theses by reputable scholars in the field (data collected at least once every three years).

These measures are reviewed annually on a formal basis, and informally throughout the year.

Indirect Measures

1. Semi-annual evaluation of student progress by IP&T faculty.

2. Annual student & alumni survey

3. Annual student interview

4. Student publications and presentations

Learning and Teaching Assessment and Improvement

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Several regularly-scheduled faculty development events provide the opportunity to feed interpretations of direct and indirect evidence back into the improvement of teaching and mentoring:

• Semi-annual Student Progress Review meetings: Course completion information, grades, instructor observations, other-faculty observations, course project quality, and major project quality may be used to assess the progress of a student in each of the curricular areas.
• Faculty presentations at regular Faculty Forum meetings: Faculty members may summarize data across students to detect trends in student progress in different curricular areas and make recommendations for change.
• Review of exit interview and survey results by the Department Chair at Faculty Forum meetings: This event gives the Chair an opportunity to summarize for the faculty what has been reported by exiting students, including job placement information.
• Review of course-specific evauations at Annual faculty Stewardship Interviews: This event allows the Chair to discuss course- and project-realted outcomes with individual faculty members to improve teaching and set goals.
• Student Advisement training for faculty given at Annual Conference: Training given yearly at Annual Conference may disseminate improved advisement guidelines.
• Student advisement interviews: At advisement meetings with students, faculty members can observe student self-assessment on progress and combine that with evidence gathered at other events and advise/prescribe course plan modifications.
• Regular job placement tracking reports: This event will occur as an agenda item at at regular Faculty Forum meetings to report changes in alumni employment and track changing trends in employment patterns.