(Posted September 29, 2003)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- David Drews, Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychology at Juniata College, will speak about using a computer assessment tool to track students? progress through an academic program as part of the Bookend Seminar lecture series at 4:30 p.m., Oct. 8 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. The Bookend Seminar series features afternoon lectures each month by Juniata College faculty.

Drews? talk, ?Using Concept Maps for Program and Course Assessment,? is derived from a student-faculty research project that used a statistical model to measure the degree to which students specializing in a particular discipline developed the same style of thinking about the discipline as the professors who taught them. Students were tested at the beginning and end of the College?s Introduction to Psychology course, as were seniors with at least 32 credits in psychology, and finally, the four Juniata faculty members in the psychology department. Psychology student Allison Bates, now a graduate student at Frostburg State University in Maryland, tackled an extensive research project that quantified this trend and that could be used as an assessment tool to measure the effectiveness of teaching and to track the progress of students through a major program.

Drews has been a member of the Juniata faculty since 1969. He earned a bachelor?s degree from Denison University in Denison, Ohio, and went on to earn a master?s degree and doctorate from the University of Delaware. He has taught courses in learning and conditioning, memory, statistics, and has guided student research at the college.

Drews was awarded the Beachley Distinguished Professor Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1989 and a Dana Professorship in 1998.

Through his teaching career, he has authored and co-authored numerous papers and articles presented to such organizations as the Peace Studies Association, Eastern Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association. He has published in such journals as ?The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,? ?The Journal of Social Behavior and Personality,? ?Teaching of Psychology,? and ?Cross-Cultural Research.?

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.