Item+Analysis

=Item Analysis= The item analysis constituted the first stage of the research project. Based on a review of the literature, an item analysis template was developed and tested on a number of sample syllabi by the project research assistant. A copy of the final version of the template is provided below. Adapting the work of Parkes, Fix, and Harris (2003), the project members additionally organized their respective institutions' academic programs into one of four discipline categories in order to facilitate coding and analysis.

Once the template was finalized and it was established that ethics approval was not necessary for the item analysis portion of the study (NB: this was confirmed by our respective ethics boards), a letter was sent to department chairs/program coordinators and administrative assistants informing them about the project and letting them know that a research assistant (one at each institution) would be approaching their office to faciliate collection of course syllabi from fall 2006 and winter 2007 (classroom courses only) in the least obtrusive way. A follow-up email communication with the same information was sent to the university community including a note on how to opt out of this phase of the project by contacting one of the project researchers. from the more than 1,000 course syllabi (face-to-face only) collected from the two participating institutions, a total of 361 syllabi (214 Laurier/147 Lakehead) were analyzed using the approved template.


 * Item Analysis Tool**


 * Chair Letter**


 * Faculty Letter**


 * Frequency Summary**