Institutional Assessment
The following assessment instruments will be administered by UWL to students, faculty or alumni. These include direct and indirect measures that will allow us to make external comparisons to similar sized schools nationally.
- The Collegiate Learning Assessment
- National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
- Faculty, Student and Alumni Surveys
Background
The General Education Assessment Task Force began meeting on July 23, 2007, to prepare a response to the following charge from Interim Provost Bill Colclough:
The task force will develop a comprehensive plan to assess university core learning outcomes that describes:
1. University core learning outcomes.
2. Assessment methods, including the instruments that will be used and the types of data that will be collected.
3. How the assessment procedures will be implemented. Who will be responsible for administering the assessment plan, coordinating the assessment procedures, collecting and analyzing the data, and summarizing and reporting the results.
4. How assessment results will be used to make decisions intended to improve the program. Who will review the results? In NCA’s terminology, what are the “mechanisms to use assessment data for systematic improvement?”
5. The rationale/reasons/justification for the various components of the plan (e.g. Why use course embedded assessment? Why use the Collegiate Learning Assessment? Why use surveys of students and faculty? What is the justification for how students will be selected for participation in standardized tests?).
6. Potential problems, challenges and implications for implementation and/or issues that need to be resolved in order to implement the plan (e.g. What types of materials, support and training might be needed to help instructors and departments learn to do course embedded assessment? How can the GEC promote university-wide buy in of the plan? What kind of incentives will be used to get good faith participation by students?).
7. The types of resources needed to implement the plan and estimate of costs.
8. A time table for implementation of the assessment procedures.
The Association for General and Liberal Studies (AGLS) publication, Improving Learning in General Education: An AGLS Guide to Assessment and Program Review (hereafter AGLS Guide), provides a systems analysis process to guide ongoing program improvement, the most difficult to achieve of the current accreditation standards related to assessment. A team from AGLS combined best practices for quality improvement through program assessment with best practices and current standards in general education to produce the AGLS Guide. It consists of a set of questions in four categories (Institutional Choices, Action Steps, Informed Judgments, and Further Improvements). Repeated analyses can identify weaknesses in each system that can help generate improvements.
Our development of a GE assessment plan has been structured by the AGLS Guide because it addresses all the issues in the charge systematically and structures our analysis according to current best practices. We recommend that university core assessment teams, coordinators, and the General Education Committee adopt it as a regular feature of their oversight of the university core program.
The Task Force chose to focus on the following four questions for the immediate future, as they seemed to capture our charge and reflect where UW-L is at the current time. We expect that as assessment data are gathered and reviewed future assessments will address other questions posed in the AGLS Guide.
Action Steps
A1. How do planning and operational processes for GE produce a “purposeful, coherent, engaging, rigorous, and cumulative” curriculum?
A8. How do our faculty use the GE learning objectives as standards for grading and otherwise evaluating student work?
Informed Judgments
J1. What measures of student success do we regularly collect and study?
Further Improvements
I1. To what extent does our faculty examine assessment results, discuss their implications, and use them to make improvements in the program?
Assessment Infrastructure
To instigate successful assessment processes for our university core program, that leads to the use of assessment results to improve student learning, we will need to implement several changes to our assessment infrastructure. These changes would not only support assessment of the university core program, but other campus assessment as well, such as annual departmental academic program reviews.
First, the Task Force recommends that UW-L hire an Assessment Coordinator who is supported by an Assessment Advisory Committee. We further recommend that each academic department name a Departmental Assessment Liaison.
- The Assessment Coordinator will be responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating university-wide assessment data, as well as providing support to departments who might request it. The Assessment Coordinator will be coordinating the flow of information from various committees and departments, and will not be making recommendations, but rather ensuring proper communications. The assessment coordination will work in conjunction with the assessment advisory committee and General Education Committee to develop processes for facilitating the discussion of the larger scale implications of the general education assessment work.
- The Assessment Advisory Committee will consist of five faculty or instructional academic staff, one from CBA, two from CLS, two from SAH, with some expertise in the area of assessment. The Assessment Coordinator will invite faculty and instructional academic staff to apply (see Appendix A). The Senate Executive committee will review the applications and appoint members to the committee in consultation with the Assessment Coordinator. Terms will be five years, with the goal of having one member term expire each year. During the first year, the following terms will be created: SAH 2-year term, CLS 3-year term, CBA 4-year term, SAH 5-year term, and CLS 6-year term. The primary responsibility of the Assessment Advisory Committee will be to assist the assessment coordinator to review assessment processes and make recommendations for changes such that assessment results will be maximally useful in informing decision making. The Assessment Advisory Committee will receive and review assessment plans for university core courses from departments. The committee will make recommendations about the quality of the plan to the General Education Committee. The committee also will review assessment data and make recommendations based on those changes. Given the large number of proposals and reports to be reviewed (there are X general education courses), and the importance of the recommendation to the General Education Committee, this responsibility should not be given to a single individual, but rather to a committee. In addition, this will give an independent assessment of General Education courses, and allow the General Education Committee to focus on other duties in addition to reviewing assessment reports. Quite likely, much of the work will be accomplished outside of the academic year.
- The General Education Committee will be responsible for holding departments accountable for engaging in the assessment process and using the assessment results in decision making. The General Education Committee will have the authority to revoke the university core status for courses if departments fail to make a good faith effort in executing the assessment plan. The General Education Committee will be responsible for reviewing the data and recommendations received from the assessment coordinator and assessment advisory committee and propose any needed revisions to the university core program based on those data and recommendations.
- Departmental Assessment Liaisons will relay information between the Assessment Coordinator and their own department.
Second, the Task Force recommends that UW-L institutionalize processes to review and discuss assessment results for decision making purposes. As will be described later in this report, the Task Force is recommending that we collect data about the university core program that are both course-specific (course embedded) and university-wide. Again, to best utilize the data for decision making purposes, we recommend that UW-L institutionalize an Assessment Results Discussion Day. Specifically, we recommend that time be set aside, such as a morning or afternoon during pre-semester week activities in January for faculty and staff to discuss assessment results. This event would be organized by the Assessment Coordinator. Additionally, we are proposing a feedback loop for course-specific assessment plans and data as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Assessment Processes
Assessment processes will include both direct and indirect assessments of student learning. Direct assessments include measures of actual student learning, such as all or part of an evaluation instrument (e.g., assignments and exam questions) already used in courses to evaluate student learning, as well as standardized measures (e.g., Collegiate Learning Assessment).
direct Measures
Course-Embedded Assessment
Summary of Course-Embedded Assessment and Rationale
Course-embedded assessment will be used as a direct measure of student learning within the university core program. This method has been deemed one of the best forms of general education assessment by assessment experts (Walwoord, 2004). Furthermore this model fits well with recently approved changes to UW-L’s Format for APR Self-Study Report (approved by APR April 2006, approved by Faculty Senate April 2006). In Section III of the APR report, programs are to “State the learning outcomes for all University Core courses taught through the department and the assessment of these outcomes and any important changes made to the courses due to assessment data.” This change makes departments accountable for assessment in their university core courses. Results of assessments are only used to facilitate student proficiency in the learning outcomes at the programmatic level. Assessment results in individual courses cannot and will not be used in the evaluation of individual instructors in any way[1], although failure to participate in assessment can be held against both individual instructors and departments. The General Education Committee has the option to revoke the university core status of any course if a department does not make a good faith effort to collect information and use the information to make decisions about how to maximize student learning.
Course-embedded data collection and reporting procedures:
1. Instructors of university core courses must identify at least one, but no more than three, student learning outcomes that are a major focus of that course. The outcomes must be selected from the University Core Program Student Learning Outcomes that were approved in Fall 2005 by Faculty Senate (http://www.uwlax.edu/generaled/GE%20Outcomes.doc). For courses with multiple sections, instructors must agree on a common outcome(s).
2. At least one assessment instrument that measures student performance of at least one of the identified student learning outcomes must be developed. This assessment exercise may take the form of an essay question on a mid-term or final exam, a selection of multiple choice questions on a quiz or exam, a course assignment, essay, oral presentation, or other measure. For courses with multiple sections, the same instrument must be used by all instructors. We realize that different instructors often do not use common measures and that choosing such measures may be challenging. However, as we need to assess our university core at the programmatic level, as opposed to the individual course level, it is important to have such commonly identified learning outcomes and measures of those outcomes.
3. The assessment instrument must include a 5-point scoring scheme for the student learning outcome(s). It is important to note that the students’ grades for class purposes might be quite different than the results of the assessment of the learning outcome, as often assignments, etc., are used by instructors to evaluate many aspects of student knowledge and abilities. This scoring scheme is specific to the learning outcome. The scoring scheme, whether it is a rubric or other evaluation mechanism, must use the following anchor terms and explain the rationale for scoring student work at each level:
1. None
2. Limited
3. Proficient
4. Advanced
5. Exemplary
The instrument and scoring scheme will then be submitted, with rationale of why the exercise is appropriate in measuring the selected outcome, for departmental approval. The exercise, rationale, and scoring scheme will then be presented to the Assessment Advisory Committee for review and recommendation and then to the General Education Committee for approval.
4. Departments may collect data at any time and will submit results of course-embedded assessments to the Assessment Coordinator on a biennial basis, in the spring of odd-numbered years.
5. The Assessment Coordinator will use the analysis to present a university core assessment report to the General Education Committee and Faculty Senate. Furthermore, the statistical analysis results will be reported to the appropriate departments. Data from multiple sections of a course will be reported as an aggregate for each outcome.
6. To ensure systematic improvement in General Education courses, it is essential that departments discuss the results of their course embedded assessment, and identify ways to improve student learning. Departments will use the results of the analysis of the assessment exercise to develop an action plan that identifies strategies for addressing student challenges in learning. The departmental action plan will then be submitted to the Assessment Advisory Committee, and then to the General Education Committee. In subsequent years, departments should specifically address in their report whether or not the changes they made improved student learning outcomes.
7. The General Education Committee has the option to revoke the university core status of any course if a department does not make a good faith effort to; 1) develop a common assessment instrument for a student learning outcome, 2) administer the instrument in all sections of the course, and 3) analyze and discuss the results to develop a departmental action plan .
See Appendix B for guidelines and helpful hints for developing course embedded assessment tools.
See Appendix C for examples of course embedded assessment.
See Appendix D for examples of rubrics for evaluating university core student learning outcomes.
The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA)
Summary of the CLA and Rationale
The CLA measures critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communication. It uses “direct measures of ability in which students actually perform cognitively demanding tasks from which quality of performance is scored.”
Some of the CLA measures emphasize written communication skills whereas others involve realistic performance tasks. The CLA measures a student’s ability to articulate complex ideas, examine claims and evidence, support ideas with relevant reasons and examples, sustain a coherent discussion, and use standard written English.
All the tasks are appropriate for college students across a wide range of undergraduate academic majors and university core programs. All CLA measures are administered online using open-ended prompts that require constructed responses: there are no multiple choice items.
Because the test is given to freshmen and seniors, the results will indicate the value added to the abilities of UW-L students. The test will also help us assess the impact of changes in the curricula and teaching and compare the performance of UWL with the national sample of several hundred institutions.
The CLA measures the types of complex abilities at the heart of university core—critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, written communication. Of course there is no single test that measures all UW-L university core learning outcomes; however, there is significant overlap between what the CLA measures and what we teach in the university core. Moreover, the CLA is a validated and reliable instrument that will allow us to monitor student performance and progress over time. In 2006-07 the General Education Committee presented an assessment timeline to the faculty senate and indicated the need to use a standardized test as one aspect of university core assessment. The GEC examined several tests for possible use and selected the CLA. The General Education Assessment Task Force has incorporated the CLA into the comprehensive plan to assess university core outcomes.
Administration and Reporting Procedures:
The CLA is administered to first-year students in fall semesters and to seniors in spring semesters. Samples will consist of approximately 100 first-year students and 100 seniors, to produce statistically valid results. It is important that samples are representative of the larger student body. First-year students will be recruited from classes that many first-year students take during their first semester, for example CST 110, Eng 110, or UWL 100. Gathering a representative sample of senior students proves more difficult, as most capstone courses are major specific. Therefore, a random sample of seniors will be recruited and offered some incentive for participation. The assessment coordinator will be responsible for generating samples and administering the test. The CLA will be administered every two years[2], alternate to the NSSE (see below for a description of the NSSE). Resources to cover cost of the CLA, $6500 per year, will be provided by the Provost’s Office.
The Assessment Coordinator will be responsible for administering the survey, analyzing results, and writing reports to various constituencies. A special university core assessment report will be generated. This report will be forwarded to the General Education Committee and posted on the university core website. The results of the CLA will be discussed during the Assessment Results Discussion Day.
Indirect Measures
Indirect measures provide information about student, faculty, and alumni perceptions of the program, as well as indicating the extent to which students encounter experiences that research indicates predicts learning.
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
Summary of the Test and Rationale
The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) assesses college students’ involvement in curricular activities that are associated with academic achievement. The NSSE is based on extensive research that shows that “the time and energy college students devote to educationally purposeful activities is the single best predictor of their learning and personal development.” The survey includes items “that are known to be related to important college outcomes” and encompasses a broad range of activities from such things as the number of papers student write and participation in class discussions to their involvement in experiential learning and extracurricular activities. The NSSE is a national survey, therefore UW-L can compare performance of its students to comparable institutions.
The NSSE comprises approximately 80 items about college life, plus several demographic information items. One item, in particular, asks students specifically about general education: To what extent has your experience at this institution contributed to your knowledge, skills, and personal development in acquiring a broad general education? In addition, many additional items relate to the University Core Student Learning Outcomes (see Appendix E for a list of items by student learning outcome category).
UW-L has been participating in the NSSE regularly since 1999 and will continue to participate as part of UW System requirements. Many of the questions provide indirect evidence of the effectiveness of several University Core Student Learning Outcomes. As UW-L has and will continue to have these data, it makes sense to use the data as we assess the university core curriculum.
Administration and Reporting Procedures
The NSSE is administered in the spring semester. First-year students and seniors comprise the sample. UW-L currently participates in the NSSE in even numbered years as required by UW System. As it is a System requirement, UW System funds are used to pay for the administration, therefore no additional resources are needed to administer the test. For the past several years, UW-L has used the web-based survey. During the most recent administration (2006), undergraduate student public relations interns from the Communication Studies department helped to advertise the NSSE, and we achieved a response rate of over 50%.
The assessment coordinator has been, and will continue to be responsible for administering the survey, analyzing results, and writing reports to various constituencies. A special university core assessment report will be generated based on related questions. This report will be forwarded to the General Education Committee and posted on the university core website. The results of the NSSE also will be discussed during the Assessment Results Discussion Day.
Faculty, Student and Alumni Surveys
Summary of the Tests and Rationale
The Task Force created three parallel surveys to be used with faculty, students and alumni. Questions were drawn from previous student, faculty, and alumni surveys, and Assessing General Education: A Questionnaire to Initiate Campus Conversations (AAC&U), and wrapped around the 2005 University Core Student Learning Outcomes (see Appendix F for faculty, student and alumni surveys). Perceptions inform the General Education Committee about the effectiveness with which University Core program is addressing community and societal needs, and whether students perceive the program as a “purposeful, coherent, engaging, rigorous, and cumulative” experience.
Administration and Reporting Procedures
The Assessment Coordinator will administer surveys to faculty, students and alumni on a biennial basis. The Coordinator will then analyze and summarize the results and report the results to the General Education Committee for review. Again, results will be posted on the university core website and discussed during the Assessment Results Discussion day.
Evaluation of the Assessment Process
The Task Force recommends that assessment processes be reviewed by both internal and external bodies. First, on a biennial basis, the Assessment Advisory Committee will review the assessment data and processes and make recommendations to improve the process (e.g., are the data useful, is the timeline appropriate, are samples representative, are rubric guidelines helpful, are departments getting information that they find useful). Second, the Task Force recommends UW-L’s university core assessment procedures be reviewed by external bodies every five years. Every 10 years, NCA reviews our assessment processes and plans. The Task Force recommends that, between-accreditation reviews, UW-L hire an assessment consultant external to the university (e.g., from the Carnegie Foundation; estimated cost $1,000) to review our processes and plans.
Timetable
|
Semester |
Activity |
|
Fall 2007 |
· Administration of the CLA to first-year students. |
|
Spring 2008 |
· Instructors select course specific student learning outcomes and submit to the Assessment Coordinator and General Education Committee. · Administration of the CLA to seniors. · Administration of the NSSE. |
|
Fall 2008 |
· Instructors develop course-embedded assessment instruments and submit instruments, scoring schemes, and rationales to Assessment Advisory Committee and General Education Committee for approval (Training will be provided at the annual Conference on Teaching and Learning) · Trial run of course-embedded data collection.a · Assessment Coordinator summarizes 2007-2008 CLA and NSSE data and reports results to the General Education Committee. · Administration of student, faculty and alumni surveys. · Administration of the CLA to first-year students. |
|
Spring 2009 |
· Second trial run of course-embedded data collection.a · Assessment Coordinator analyzes and summarizes data from faculty, student, and alumni surveys and reports results to the General Education Committee. · Campus-wide discussion of 2007-2008 CLA and NSSE results. (January). · Administration of the CLA to seniors. |
|
Fall 2009 |
· Course-Embedded data collection.a · Assessment Coordinator submits course-embedded assessment data to the General Education Committee for review. · Assessment Coordinator summarizes 2008-2009 CLA data and reports results to the General Education Committee. |
|
Spring 2010 |
· Course-Embedded data collection.a · General Education Committee reviews all data and submits a report to faculty senate. · Campus-wide discussion of 2008-2009 CLA results (January) · Assessment Advisory Committee reviews assessment processes and makes recommendations for revisions. · Administration of the NSSE. · Departments submit results of course embedded assessment to the Assessment Coordinator. |
a Data can be collected multiples times during this two year period and submitted for analysis. Departments are encouraged to collect data on an annual basis and use data accordingly. For courses with large numbers of sections or students, departments may submit data for a representative sample of students in the course. The sample should consist of no fewer than 20% of students enrolled.
References
Improving Learning in General Education: An AGLS Guide to Assessment & Program Review. Muncie, IN: Association for General and Liberal Education, 2006.
Meacham, Jack, Assessing General Education. A Questionnaire To Initiate Campus Conversations.. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges & Universities, 1997.
NCA team report http://www.uwlax.edu/nca/pdf/coredocs/team_finalreport.pdf
Spellings report http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/final-report.pdf
Walvoord, Barbara, Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education. 2004
Appendix A
Application for Assessment Advisory Committee
Assessment of student learning is becoming increasingly important. Institutions of higher education are facing external accountability pressures. More importantly, understanding what and how students are learning is critical in our attempts to continuously improve our programs. As the Assessment Advisory Committee is designed to serve as a resource for several constituents on campus (e.g., General Education Committee, Academic Program Review, Departments), it is important that members have some experience and expertise in techniques and tools used to assess student learning as well as in using assessment results to guide decision making. Much of the work of the Assessment Advisory committee likely will occur outside of the traditional academic year (i.e., during January or summer months).
In no more than 2 pages, please describe your qualifications to serve on the Assessment Advisory Committee, including (but not limited to) such experiences as the following:
- Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grants, projects, presentations, publications
- Assessment workshops or conferences attended
- Awards related to teaching & learning or assessment
- Experiences as a Wisconsin Teaching Fellow or Scholar
- Participation in Lesson Study
- Experience on department or college assessment committee
- Experience as a department assessment liaison
Appendix B
Guidelines and Helpful Hints for Developing Course Embedded Assessment Tools
Types of Assessment Instruments
These two sources can help faculty determine what type of instrument to use:
1. “Evaluating Assessment Strategies” for classroom and course data, on The American Psychological Association’s Assessment division’s website: http://www.apa.org/ed/eval_strategies.html. This website evaluates both qualitative and quantitative assessment strategies.
· The site includes both traditional methods of evaluating students (ie, objective or essay tests) and newer methods designed specifically for assessment.
· The introduction explains the difference between evaluating students (grading) and assessment, and explains how assessment can be embedded into graded exams and assignments.
· Each entry identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each method.
2. Thomas A Angelo and K. Patricia Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993). At least 30 copies are floating around UW-L. Newer faculty may own a copy of this book, as do the organizers of the CoTL conference; faculty who have been a Wisconsin Teaching Scholar or Fellow might own a copy; a copy is also on 3-day reserve in Murphy Library in the Faculty Development Collection (LB2822.75 .A54 1993).
· This book provides generalized designs for assessment instruments and illustrates several adaptations of each design to particular courses and disciplines. Each entry starts with an estimate of the time and energy necessary for faculty to design it, students to take it, and faculty to evaluate data from it. Each entry explains the pros and cons of each instrument and a step-by-step process for adapting the design to a specific course. The book includes fifty assessment designs.
· Note that some of these techniques merely provide instructors with a quick check on student understanding in the midst of a class session or with a check-in on how students think the course is going, and are thus not adequate for assessing program-level outcomes.
· To locate the instrument designs most likely to serve well for GE or department assessment, use the Teaching Goals Inventory in the book, or online with automated scoring at http://www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi/index.html The inventory will identify the relevant “cluster” of outcomes for your course. You can conduct an extensive inventory of a course, or focus simply on the main priorities (ie, the GE or program outcomes reflected in the work you assign students to do to demonstrate their understanding). The inventory will identify the types of learning (“Teaching Goal Inventory clusters”) you are emphasizing in that course. Then use the chart on p. 113 in the book to identify which CATs might work for you.
Assessment Instruments
1. Don’t reinvent the wheel. See Angelo and Cross as described above for general designs for instruments.
2. Graded work you already assign can function for assessment purposes.
3. Determine which outcome each item of your exam or assignment addresses. Extract those that measure the GE or program outcome you are measuring.
4. One instrument can measure three outcomes. This is particularly true of qualitative instruments. Each outcome would be scored with a rubric designed for that outcome.
Evaluating Qualitative Assignments
1. Evaluate qualitative instruments with rubrics. The Academy of Art University provides a clear explanation of the value of rubrics and some guidelines for creating and using them at http://faculty.academyart.edu/resources/rubrics.asp
2. A 5-point rubric allows you to use the assessment evaluation for grading as well. It also provides sufficient variation to be useful for guiding program improvement.
3. A rubric is well-designed when it is clear, specific, and simple enough that different raters score the same student work similarly.
4. Define levels clearly and specifically (ie, not just “unsatisfactory” to “superlative” or “F” to “A”). Think of it as explaining the difference between an A and a B and a C . . .
5. Break out the components of the outcome in your rubric.
6. Rubrics programmed as quizzes on D2L or SurveySelect provide electronic data; analysis can then be automated. They can also be make available to multiple instructors of the same course or to assessment committees.
7. Don’t reinvent the wheel, but choose or alter a rubric that fits the outcome, not just the content. See the chart below for a variety of online sources by GE outcome. If what you need is not included below, try a meta-site like NC State’s “Internet Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment:” http://www2.acs.ncsu.edu/UPA/assmt/resource.htm#area This site includes resources by discipline as well as for General Education.
8. Many of the rubrics available online indicate only 3 or 4 levels. These are less valuable both for assessment and for grading. You can adapt them, often by adding a higher level that indicates more advanced levels of thinking. Remember that the prompts for GE rubric levels are:
1. None
2. Limited
3. Proficient
4. Advanced
5. Exemplary
Appendix C
Examples of Course Embedded Assessment tools
Example 1
Student Learning Outcome:
III.6. Detect patterns underlying phenomena and draw reasonable inferences from information
Question:
Filene’s Basement, a local Boston discount department store, sells a wide selection of household goods and clothing. The manager of household linens is facing an oversupply of queen size sheets and must decide whether or not to put them on sale during the month of November. While reading the Boston Globe over coffee this past Sunday, she saw that Mattress Discounters, a local mattress shop located down the street from Filenes, is having a gigantic sale on its queen size mattresses starting this weekend and continuing throughout the month. Explain in words what effect, if any, this should have on her decision about a sale on sheets.
Answer:
Because queen size mattresses and queen size sheets are complement goods and the mattress seller is having a sale (which will result in an increased quantity of mattresses purchased), the household linens manager should expect to sell more sheets holding her price constant. Therefore, she may be able to reduce her stock of sheets without reducing the price.