Journal of Public Affairs Education

Cover Photo

More than 20,000 students attend Oakland University, which is located in Rochester, Michigan; just outside the city of Detroit.

Photo courtesy of Oakland University.

Cover and Interior Deslgn

Val Escher

This paper examines the self-reported progress of public service degree programs in NASPAA for defining, measuring, and assessing student learning outcomes as they relate to the “ability to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce.” The analysis is placed in the context of the need for cultural competencies among public administration professionals and the evolution of this accreditation standard. Using data drawn from accreditation records, we first present an exploratory qualitative analysis of how programs are defining this competency over time and how progress on this competency relates to progress on competency assessment generally and to other measures of program diversity. We interpret all findings in the context of two broad goals: to provide an accurate assessment of program progress and to provide useful information to programs seeking to develop their competency definitions and assessment.

In this paper, we refer to iterative learning as a developmental approach toward assessment—a course-embedded program mission assessment—used by University of La Verne Master of Public Administration (MPA) program faculty. Iterative learning draws upon an understanding that informed assessment is a developmental process that evolves through deliberation, refinement, and discussion. The paper places this approach within the ongoing efforts in a field that is developing program assessment and competencies. We present lessons learned from our multiyear effort, including challenges and future directions.

The implementation of NASPAA’s 2009 accreditation standards embodied a shift toward outcomes-based assessment. NASPAA-accredited programs must now identify, operationalize, and assess mission-related competencies within five competency domains with the goal of demonstrating that their programs lead to student learning. This move aligns with broader trends in governance as efforts to ascertain impact, value, and return on investment permeate the discussions of public sector actors. Public administration programs, like other services that deal in difficult-to-measure outcomes, have discovered the challenges inherent in such an effort. This paper considers the landscape of competency assessment strategies and then examines the experiences of designing a competency-based model at James Madison University.

Competency-based education has become the norm for professional graduate degree programs. This paper describes the development, implementation, and ongoing validation of a competency model designed for a multifaceted public administration program. The model is based on accreditation standards and competencies promulgated by NASPAA and CAHME, and reflects a unique focus on community-engaged pedagogies. A framework consisting of 10 competencies was implemented in 2011–12 and validated through feedback from stakeholders, alumni, field preceptors, and graduates. A two-dimensional matrix of content coverage and expected levels of competency attainment delineates the articulation of competencies, curriculum, and course content, and provides a framework for program evaluation. Multiple methods for evaluating the competency-based graduate health administration program are described. Ongoing efforts to refine courses, the curriculum, and the competency model are discussed in the context of the program’s mission, multiple accreditation standards, assessment of student learning outcomes, and engagement of community stakeholders.

This paper describes the opportunities and challenges encountered in formulating and implementing strategies for assessing universally required competencies and mission-specific competencies in a large public affairs school with five MPA programs and one Master of International Affairs (MIA) program. The paper analyzes the building blocks in assessing competencies, from defining, identifying, and developing and revising evaluative tools, to the efforts in and approaches for engaging different stakeholders. This analysis identifies the significance of investing time in the developmental stage and highlights the difficulties encountered in reaching consensus, especially on when and how learning should be evaluated and from whose perspective. The paper proposes, however, that the field should continue to move toward agreement about methods for assessing program effectiveness within and beyond individual schools, in order to move away from this impasse and help promote results that are usable at diverse institutions and multiple levels.

This paper investigated how the use of The Wire, a fictional television drama that first aired in 2002, is used in public administration/affairs related courses. Using Carrizales’ (2010) framework for culturally competent curricula, the author evaluated how the show is applied to impart skills and knowledge based within the framework’s four components. This study examined select course syllabi that make primary use of The Wire. Findings demonstrate the usability and effectiveness of The Wire as a tool to develop a culturally competent curriculum and the importance and necessity of supplementing traditional instructional methods with innovative practices of the 21st century. Central to this study is the argument that using the show expands the teaching of traditional theoretical models and instruction methods to include a wide range of views and perspectives.

There is a need to assess the scholarly activity of the field of public administration at the institutional level as it continues to develop as a separate, autonomous discipline and to evaluate academic and university reputation, impact, and directions of the public administration scholarly community. The authors surveyed public administration journals based upon criteria from Thompson Reuters Journal Citation Reports to determine productivity, quality, and overall institutional impact and then created an index. The study is based on previous attempts to rank universities in the field of public administration while drawing influence from the ranking systems found within other social science disciplines. The analysis shows what universities published in top public administration journals over a five-year period, 2006–2010, according these criteria. Discussions of the implications on teaching and research in public administration and public affairs are also considered.

Community engagement and civic learning have become increasingly common components of higher education in the United States. Service-learning programs are one way to promote civic learning. Researchers and practitioners must evaluate the effectiveness of service learning by measuring the degree to which it results in meaningful student-level outcomes. The Public Affairs Scale has been developed as a valid and reliable measure of civic learning in the three domains of community engagement, cultural competence, and ethical leadership. However, the scale contains 40 items and can take a long time to administer. This study sought to create and validate a short version of the Public Affairs Scale. Using exploratory factory analysis, we identified a 15-item structure and then subjected it to confirmatory factor analysis. Results of confirmatory factor analysis supported the 15-item short scale version of the Public Affairs Scale. The short scale was found to correlate with similar measures of service-learning outcomes.

Defining policy problems is crucial to the policy process. The definition process is difficult because it relies more on craft developed through experience and intuition than on objective methodology. The lack of a methodology presents considerable challenges to novice policy students because of their lack of knowledge and experience in defining complex problems and thus their undeveloped skill in craft. Root Cause Analysis (RCA), a structured methodology designed to analyze the causes and effects of problems, can be a powerful pedagogical method to increase student comprehension and success in defining policy problems. Although RCA was developed primarily as an ex post methodology in the engineering, computing, and health care fields to understand how major adverse events or system failures occurred, a modified RCA is well suited for identifying and analyzing complex and dynamic policy problems. This paper provides a framework on the use of RCA as a pedagogical method for improving policy student learning.