MEASURING GENERAL EDUCATION SUCCESS: ASSESSMENT, CORE COMPETENCIES, AND UNIVERSITY GOALS

One of the greatest challenges that educational institutions face is that of assessment. Assessment is an important tool for the maintenance and growth of any educational program and today, when educational institutions are being asked to continually achieve higher student competencies with fewer resources, assessment becomes essential to the higher education community. From class performance, to program oversight, to larger goals of an institution, various forms of assessment are part of what should be a holistic and intentional institutional plan. But the question remains, how can student performance be quantified in meaningful ways that support the continual growth and development of learning theory and methodology? Furthermore, how can institutions build and promote a culture of assessment that helps shape the learning experience for students and elevate curriculum goals to strengthen core skills? This paper explores the shifting forms of assessment in general education and argues that creating a holistic assessment approach that measures consistent benchmarks across general education courses promotes the foundational value of assessment practices to inform curriculum design and strengthen attention to core 21st century competencies that inform general education program design.

To unpack this argument, this paper examines the pilot launch of the general education assessment program at DeVry University in the United States. In 2016, I led a team of faculty and administrators from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and began work to revise the core general education common learning outcomes. From this foundational process, a comprehensive assessment plan was developed to assess common learning outcomes across courses and course levels within the general education core. Courses from across 100 to 400-levels were selected and faculty teams designed rubrics to reflect common learning outcome competencies for general education. Faculty then worked in conjunction with university technology administrators to develop assessment rubrics through the learning management assessment tool in Canvas, the online platform utilized by the university. With this integration, assessment data can be pulled directly from courses administered each session to form data sets for review by faculty-led curriculum advisory teams. While still in the early stages of data collection, the goal of this process has been designed to create a continual feedback loop of assessment to aid in identifying curricular gaps, student skills gaps, and assist with curriculum design in data-based ways.

To illustrate the key components of the process of this assessment program, this study begins by examining the literature on assessment practices specific to general education in higher education. Second, this study provides developed descriptions and examples of assessment cycles, rubrics, and technologies leveraged to collect data. Third, this study considers faculty, student, and administrative roles as parts of a holistic and intentional assessment process. Finally, this study concludes with a brief summary of recent data from early stages of the program and recommendations for moving forward with assessment and curriculum design. By engaging these complex components, this study considers the role of assessment – and developing a culture of assessment within institutions – as foundational to the general education function and community in higher education.