Background / Defining the Issues of General Education
The statement of general education outcomes from the college’s catalogue reads as follows:
The aims of general education are to enable students to understand and appreciate their culture and environment; to develop a system of personal values based on accepted ethics that lead to civic and social responsibility; and to attain the skills in analysis, communication, quantification, and synthesis necessary for further growth as a lifespan-learner and productive member of society.
Based on this statement, which was designed and approved by the faculty, it is possible to identify seven general education outcomes.
- An aim of general education is to enable students to understand and appreciate their culture
- An aim of general education is to enable students to understand and appreciate their environment
- An aim of general education is to develop a system of personal values based on accepted ethics that lead to civic and social responsibility.
- An aim of general education is to attain the skills in analysis (critical thinking, scientific reasoning) necessary for further growth as a lifespan-learner and productive member of society.
- An aim of general education is to attain the skills in communication necessary for further growth as a lifespan-learner and productive member of society.
- An aim of general education is to attain the skills in quantification necessary for further growth as a lifespan-learner and productive member of society.
- An aim of general education is to attain the skills in synthesis necessary for further growth as a lifespan-learner and productive member of society.
Assessment of three of these outcomes (#4, #5, #6) was a focus of the CAAP testing efforts. This assessment used three years of standardized testing measuring skill development in college level reading, mathematics, science reasoning, critical thinking, and writing skills. Three of the outcomes – appreciating their culture and environment, and developing a system of personal values … (#1, #2, #3) – could not be directly measured by testing, however they were included as survey questions as a part of the CAAP format. Through this linkage the testing effort did provide some insight into how students reported their development on these outcomes. The outcome focused on synthesis (#7) was not directly evaluated by any of the standardized tests, but some components of its development could be inferred from the results from both the critical thinking and science reasoning instruments.
Those who remember the CAAP efforts will recall that during the first year, 1999, we used two CAAP instruments – one the multiple choice writing skills test, and the other the essay writing sample – to measures communication skills. After one year we suspended use of the essay writing instrument since the scores, while confirming that our students were similar to the national norms for two-year college students, were not sensitive to documenting changes over those two years. In other words, the essay scales could identify those writing at a college level; it did not measure the changes occurring during the first two years at college. In addition to the standardized testing process two other college efforts provided some insight into general education skills development. One Enduring Purpose Team (EPT) conducted surveys of COD graduates and local employers which focused on their evaluations of general education development. Also another EPT used focus groups to gather information about preparation for a transfer to another school.
Reports from all these and other sources have provided feedback on which to base the next steps in student outcomes assessment. Based on those findings it became evident that advancement of the assessment effort needed to examine writing as an applied general education skill and synthesis as a thinking process applied not to critical reading but to broader real-world questions in which answers are complex and conditional.
