Dean Zimmerman has argued forcefully for the need to convince the public that one of the key components of a college education are the general good of a liberal education.
The AAC&U is trying to quantify what that means and provide some data to show if it is working. Their standardized testing suggests that only 11% of seniors qualify as "proficient" in writing and only 6% are "proficient" in critical thinking skills.
I don't know how they arrived at these figures, but I imagine that they are pretty close to correct. Our students surely would do no better. How can we change this?
Another link related to this story is here.
AAC&U News Room | Liberal Education Outcomes: A Preliminary Report on Student Achievement in College
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Actually, if we had any kind of general education assessment program, you would see a definition of "proficient" and know what percentage of our students meet that standard. Unfotunately, we have ducked assessment efforts for years. We run from those numbers the same way we run from the NSSE numbers. It will be real interesting to see what the NCA accreditors say when they are on campus in 18 months.
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