The assessment of general education is often approached through broad surveys or standardized instruments that fail to capture the learning goals most faculty members desire for this portion of the curriculum. The challenge in remedying this situation lies, first, in defining general education in meaningful ways that can be both articulated and…

An analysis of interviews, focus-group discussions, assessment instruments, and assignment prompts revealed that within general education, faculty assessed critical thinking as faceted using methods and criteria that varied epistemically across disciplines. Faculty approaches were misaligned with discipline-general institutional approaches.…

Planning is possibly the most important step of the assessment process. This article presents a four-tiered approach to designing and implementing a general education institutional assessment plan. Categorizing the measures you use to assess established learning outcomes helps you prioritize your general education assessment initiatives and keep…

The societal benefits of an educated citizenry may be lost if "customers" at tuition-driven universities demand less of what they pay for because they value a credential more than the education it represents. Insights from potential employers may help students see the value of education and demand their money's worth.

One of the most enduring images from Wilson's "The Social Conquest of Earth" (2012) is the campfire, the place of warmth and community around which gathered early humankind. It seems an ideal metaphor for teaching and learning, with mentors and learners gathered around an enterprise of mutual society: No one at the core, but all warmed and…

Emile Durkheim, the sociologist and education professor, said that the personality developed by a form of literary study was contrary to genuinely Christian character. Provoked by this insight, the author explores whether a Christian university's reliance on classical liberal arts education might be working against its desires for the character of…

General education requirements are a cornerstone of the U.S. system of higher education, making up approximately 30 percent of the average undergraduate degree program (Brint, Proctor, Murphy, Turk-Bicakci, & Hanneman, 2009). While there appears to be a consensus among U.S. educators and employers that general education is a valuable component of…

The purpose of this study was to explain the process and implementation of an outcomes-based general education program at a public, doctoral/research-extensive institution from the perspective of faculty. The theory that emerged explains how different causal, intervening, and contextual conditions interact with and affect the phenomenon of general…

This article discusses the development of a scale informed by the construct of emotional intelligence designed to measure student development outcomes identified as co-curricular goals. Supervisors, staff, and coaches provided firsthand accounts of student development outcomes at a small, private, liberal arts work college, generating data on…

Many universities positively impact student retention rates by aligning state competencies and undergraduate coursework with specific learning outcomes known to contribute to success. Faculty from teaching and nursing conducted interdisciplinary focus group research to gather student perceptions concerning whether skills obtained through core…

This study investigated deep learning produced in a community of general education courses. Student speeches on liberal education were analyzed for discovering a grounded theory of ideas about self. The study found that learning communities cultivate deep, integrative learning that makes the value of a liberal education relevant to students.…

This research study investigated the assessment practices of five different undergraduate business programs. It examines the learning outcomes required for the business programs and their linkages with general education outcomes. Specific assessment methods, the results from assessments, and how business program faculty use assessment findings to…

The article features an analysis of Lessons Learned in Assessing International Learning, the goals of which were to advance the assessment of international learning in order to improve it at U.S. higher education institutions. The project was conducted from 2003 to 2007 and utilized a mixed-methods approach using student surveys and ePortfolios.…

This essay is anchored on the challenges institutions face in attempting to assess international learning outcomes. It documents Michigan State University's efforts to seek and pilot new measurement tools to confront this challenge. Based on Michigan's assessment experience, it provides lessons others might consider for the success of their…

Portland State University participated in Lessons Learned in Assessing International Learning hoping to generate new knowledge about how international learning might be assessed. Though attention was focused on developing and testing particular instruments for assessment, several highly tentative inferences about international learning itself,…