Use of Course Evaluations to Assess the Contributions of Curricular and Pedagogical Initiatives to Undergraduate General Education Learning Objectives

This report describes measures and methods of data analysis and representation of a systemic approach to the assessment of curricular and pedagogical contributions to general education learning objectives. An existing system for student evaluation of teaching was transformed to enable faculty to designate the learning objectives of the course and students to evaluate the extent to which the course contributed to their self-appraised growth in intellectual skills. This systemic approach enables analysis at the level of the individual course and across courses with common learning objectives and pedagogical approaches. The utility of this system is demonstrated through assessing the differential contribution to general education learning objectives of curricular components and an innovative pedagogical approach that blends field-based research and service learning.