Education Program Accreditation and Annual Reports

The Vincennes University (VU) teacher preparation program has been accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) since 2012. National accreditation is a mark of distinction and provides recognition that educator preparation programs have met national professional standards. 

In 2014, the consolidation of NCATE into the accrediting body of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), an evidence-based accreditation that assures quality and continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 student learning, was recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Vincennes University is currently fully accredited through CAEP.

The national accreditation process includes two parts. Part 1 involves review of individual programs.  All initial licensure programs are approved by the Indiana Department of Education.  Additionally, each licensure program is recognized a specialty professional organization as indicated in the chart below.  Part 2 of the national accreditation process involves the review of the unit (the collection of programs).  The unit reviews include a self-study and an on-site visit.

Title II Reports:

• 2019-2020 Title II Report Card
• 2018-2019 Title II Report Card
• 2017-2018 Title II Report Card
• 2016-2017 Title II Report Card

1388 Reports:

House Enrolled Act No. 1388 (HEA 1388) was enacted during the 2014 session of the Indiana General Assembly and was incorporated within IC 20-28-3-1 and IC 20-28-11.5-9. This act requires the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) to collect and report information from teacher preparation programs, principals, and teachers. 

• 2021 1388 Annual EPP Report
• 2020 1388 Annual EPP Report
• 2019 1388 Annual EPP Report
• 2018 1388 Annual EPP Report
• 2017 1388 Annual EPP Report
• 2016 1388 Annual EPP Report

Annual Report

• 2020 Annual Report
• 2019 Annual Report
• 2018 Annual Report
• 2017 Annual Report
• 2016 Annual Report
• 2015 Annual Report

CAEP Annual Report Measures

Accrediting Agencies:  Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), Indiana Department of Education (IDOE)

Current Status:  Accredited by CAEP, IDOE

Most recent reaffirmation of accreditation:  Fall 2019

The following initial licensure programs were included in the Spring 2019 Site Visit and are full accredited by CAEP:

• Special Education Mild Intervention K - 12
• Math Education
• Science Education

Next reaffirmation of accreditation:  Fall 2026

Academic Year 2019-2020 General Profile

Academic Programs

All school-based professional preparation programs offered at Vincennes University are housed within or coordinated through the College of Social Science, Performing Arts, and Communication (SSPAC).

Historically, the Education Department has offered associate degrees in education since the mid-1960s. In 2004, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education granted VU permission to offer baccalaureate degree education programs in special education, mild intervention/elementary education, secondary mathematics, and science education to address state-wide teacher shortages in those specific areas. VU first offered coursework in these education majors in the Fall of 2007. The Dean of the College of Social Science, Performing Arts, & Communication is Dr. Cynthia Ragle, and the Education Department is chaired by Ann Herman. Numerous faculty members from other departments at the institution teach required courses in the three programs. The Education Department has established and maintains collegiate relationships with faculty members from these various departments. Faculty members from other departments have attended professional development opportunities with Education Department faculty to receive information about the program and to provide input into the program. Additionally, Education faculty members along with K-12 teachers and administrators,  participate in the Teacher Education Advisory Council (TEAC). This council meets twice a year to make recommendations concerning the curriculum for the Vincennes University Education Program. 

The chart below lists the name of each program, the corresponding certification level (initial or advanced), the academic degree awarded, and the name of the Specialized Professional Association (SPA).

Initial Certification Program Completer Undergraduate (Academic Year 2017 -2020)

Data Source(s): Title II Reports 

Measure 1: Impact on P-12 Learning and Development

The EPP recognizes a gap in our data regarding Measure #1. As a response to previous concerns raised by CAEP in both our Annual Reports and during our site visit in 2019, we began work to create an assessment that would address our completers' impact on P-12 learning and development more directly. While some of our survey data does seem to address different dimensions of teaching and learning (and therefore P-12 learning impacts indirectly), we did not have a direct measure to use for Standard 4. This led to the development of the Program Improvement Assessment (PIA). The PIA was developed to address dimensions of teaching effectiveness and P-12 learning and development through an easy-to-implement instrument distributed to principals that directly supervise our completers during their first three years post-graduation. This instrument will be distributed for the first time in May 2022. Working with the EPP's Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Research, the EPP aims to determine the validity and reliability of the instrument during its first few iterations.

Data Source(s):
(PIA)

Measure 2: Indicators of Teaching Effectiveness

Measure 2 shows that our completers are performing relatively well in the workforce once they leave VU. Over the past three years, state-provided data about teaching effectiveness show that VU completers (in their first 3 years of teaching) are being rated as either effective or highly effective 98% of the time on average.

Digging deeper, we have noted an upward trend in the data also. In 2017-18 (three data cycles ago), our effectiveness rating (effective + highly effective) was 96%. This was the same as the state average value of 96%. In 2018-19 (two data cycles ago), our effectiveness rating was 100%, outmatching the state average of 98%.  In our most recent data cycle of 2019-20, our effectiveness rating was again 100%, outpacing the state average of 98%.  Cumulatively, over the cycle of the past three years, our completers are beating the state average at a rate of 98% to 97%.

In addition to the state data given, the EPP has decided to collect data from our recent graduates and their teaching effectiveness through the use of the My Class Inventory Instrument.  The "My Class Inventory" (MCI) instrument is a simplified form of the "Learning Environment Inventory" and is suitable for children in the 8 to 12 years’ age range. Although the MCI was developed originally for use at the elementary school level, it also has been found to be very useful with students at the seventh-grade level, especially among students who might experience reading difficulties. There are five scales - cohesiveness, friction, difficulty, satisfaction, and competitiveness. Statistical information about the MCI information is available.

Students' perceptions of the classroom psycho-social learning environment have a large impact on learning and behavior. While not directly acquiring individual student and classroom achievement data, Vincennes University would be gathering data on those aspects of students’ perceptions that directly impact student achievement. This instrument would be distributed to our recent completers twice a year for completion - once during the first couple of weeks of the school year and once during the last month of the school year. By implementing the MCI twice a year we can measure the teacher's impact on student perceptions over the course of the year on the classroom psychosocial environment and their impact on student learning and behavior. Teachers of lower grades would have to read the questions to the students.  Data collection using the MCI will begin in the 2021-22 academic year.

Data Source(s):
Indiana’s HEA 1388 Data:1388 Effectiveness Ratings since 2016-17
MCI data (coming soon)

Measure 3: Satisfaction of Employers and Employment Milestones

Initial Certification Program Completers

The Principal’s Survey (administered and collected by the Indiana Department of Education) evaluates the EPP's preparation of the recent completers.  Recent data from this instrument also shows a similar trend to the data collected for Measure 2. The 2019 Principal Survey was administered by the State of Indiana in the spring of 2019 to evaluate the preparation of teachers who had received their initial licenses in the past two years. Principals were asked to evaluate the EPP in three different domains - knowledge, pedagogy, and dispositions- and offer a summary judgment on how satisfied they are with the preparation their teachers received by the EPP. The overall satisfaction rating (Very Satisfied + Satisfied) was 100% for VU (n=11). This compares well against the state average of 92.8% for that same survey year. 

The internal Administrator's Survey data collected by the EPP tell a similar story. Over the past three data cycles (2017, 2018, 2020), employers rate their satisfaction with our graduates at 93% overall. It will be noted, however, that the 2019 data are missing - we attempted to convert the Administrator's Survey to a Google form in that year and received no responses. One disturbing trend of note out of these survey data, however, is the overall decline in our ratings between 2017 (n=1), 2018 (n=12), and 2020 (n=15). Since n=1 for 2017, it is hard to take any of the data coming from that response seriously as far as determining trends. However, given the relatively robust response rates in 2018 and 2020, it is interesting to note that the 2020 cohort was rated lower for all of the teaching effectiveness measures than the 2018 cohort. Also noticeable was that the percent of very satisfied employers went down from 75% in 2018 to 33% in 2020. Since there is no year in between to help evaluate if this is a slow slide downward, a response to how well our graduates dealt with COVID, or a statistical anomaly, it will be interesting to see where the 2021 cohort fits into this trend. This, however, does not match qualitative data drawn from our discussions with TEAC or informal conversations held with stakeholders in our community.

Data Source(s):
Principal Survey Data (State Collected)
Measure 3 - Employer Satisfaction - Prinicpals Survey (IN DOE)

Administrator Survey (VU collected) 
Measure 3 Employer Satisfaction (VU Administrator Survey) revised 4-21-21

Measure 4: Satisfaction of Completers

Initial Certification Program Completers

For measure #4, we rely mostly on survey data from our recent completers. The survey is given to our completers immediately after completing student teaching/graduation (Teacher Candidate Exit Survey). In this survey, we ask the completers to evaluate their preparation for the different aspects of teaching, broken up into groups based upon VU's 5 Guiding Principles as well as a series of questions related to their satisfaction with VU and their preparation for their jobs. Although the survey was sent out in 2020, we received no responses from our graduating cohort. We theorize that the combination of COVID massively disrupting the last few weeks of their student teaching paired with job uncertainty and a lack of face-to-face interaction with our students after March led to this survey being pushed aside by most of our completers. Looking over the past two years of data (2018, 2019 [previous years of data are not included since a major revision to the instrument was done after the collection of 2017 data]), one important trend of note has emerged; Our students have recognized that they simply have not had the opportunity to teach students from diverse backgrounds. In some ways, our location in rural southwestern Indiana has constrained our access to students of such varieties. We have attempted to address this problem in several ways and with different solutions. The 2019 cohort, which was one of the first to see some of the changes in action, still recognizes that diversity (or lack thereof) is an issue that we continue to deal with in the experiential domain. The EPP has begun working closely with Dr. Robert Dotson, VU Associate Dean of Students, on minority student recruitment efforts within the Vincennes, Indiana community, the VU service area of southwest Indiana, and the State of Indiana at large. Finally, the EPP has taken steps to revise EDUC 395, Cultural Immersion Project to better address the issues of teaching in schools in communities of greater cultural diversity. These improvements will hopefully start to bring about improvements in these perceived weaknesses in our program.

Data Source:
Teacher Candidate Exit Survey: Teacher Candidate's Exit Survey data 2018-2019

Measure 5: Graduation Rates

The institutional graduation rate for Fall 2019 was 46.8% Please note that data points will be based upon the September 1, 2019 – August 31, 2020 Title II timeframe (2021 Report).

Date Source: 2021 1388 Annual EPP Report

Measure 6: Ability of Completers to Meet Licensing and State Requirements for Certification

Institution Pass Rates listed below are generated by the Title 2 Report and are calculated based on Indiana's Cut Scores.

Assessment Pass Rates

The pass rates table is populated from files provided by the testing company or state. The table provides information on the performance of the students in your teacher preparation program on each teacher credential assessment in Indiana. In cases where a student has taken a given assessment more than once, the highest score on that test is used. In the case of a teacher preparation program with fewer than 10 scores reported on any single initial teacher credential assessment during an academic year, the program shall collect and publish information with respect to an average pass rate and scaled score on each state credential assessment taken over a three-year period. (§205(a)(1)(B))

Source: Title II Report: Vincennes University Traditional Report AY 2019-20

Summary Pass Rates

The pass rates table is populated from files provided by the testing company or state. The table provides information on the performance of the students in your teacher preparation program on each teacher credential assessment used by your state. In cases where a student has taken a given assessment more than once, the highest score on that test is used. In the case of a teacher preparation program with fewer than 10 scores reported on any single initial teacher credential assessment during an academic year, the program shall collect and publish information with respect to an average pass rate and scaled score on each state credential assessment taken over a three-year period. (§205(a)(1)(B))

Source: Title II Report: Vincennes University Traditional Report AY 2019-20

Measure 7: Ability of Completers to be Hired in Education Positions for Which They Have Been Prepared

Source: Title II Report: Vincennes University Traditional Report AY 2019-20

PLEASE NOTE: To be hired in teaching positions, candidates must graduate from the program and pass the Indiana Department of Education’s required certification test for that specific program/content area/grade span. For AY 2019-2020, the EPP had a total of 15 completers. Of those 15, only 9 did not meet licensure requirements. Therefore,40% of graduates have the ability to be hired.

In spite of these preliminary metrics, we do have self-reported evidence from completers of being hired in their academic areas, whether it is on an emergency license or after completion of the licensing exams following graduation, but outside of the Title II reporting windows.  The Measure 7 document - Hiring in degree area 2017-2020 shows where our most recent graduates have self-reported earning employment, and the overall percentage of completers in their cohort in the workforce.  The table below summarizes these survey data:

While Measure 6 does show that our students have generally had difficulties in passing the licensing exams, they are self-reporting that they are gaining employment at a slightly better rate than licensing.  This shows that employers still find value in our graduates, even as they continue to work toward being licensed.

Measure 7 - Hiring in degree area 2017-2020

Source - Title II Report: Vincennes University Traditional Report AY 2019-20

Measure 8: Student Loan Default Rates and Other Consumer Information.

The following information is provided by our Vincennes University Financial Aid Office. This is the most current data available.

Measure 8 - Loan default rate history

Other Consumer Information

Cost of Attendance 2021-2022

Source: Cost of Attendance - Financial Services

For full accreditation information, click here.