To Resist, Acquiesce, or Internalize: Departmental Responsiveness to Demands for Outcomes Assessment

Young, Candace C.; Cartwright, Debra K.; Rudy, M.

doi:10.1080/15512169.2013.862502

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…At the program level, professional studies and accredited programs have embraced assessment (Ewell, Paulson, and Kinzie 2011). Conversely, the humanities and social sciences are more likely to “decouple” assessment from their daily work (Young, Cartwright, and Rudy 2014).…”

Section: Explaining Student Outcomes Assessment Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Skepticism about the purposes and value of assessment pervades academia, especially the arts and sciences (Ewell, Paulson, and Kinzie 2011). In political science—which has accomplished as much as any non-accredited discipline to promote understanding and best practices of assessment (Deardorff, Hamann, and Ishiyama 2009)—the dominant stance of most programs is acquiescence to outside demands rather than commitment from faculty to improve curriculum and instruction (Young, Cartwright, and Rudy 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: Three Decades of Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education

McClellan

2016

APSC

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Section: Explaining Student Outcomes Assessment Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: Three Decades of Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education

McClellan

2016

APSC

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“…As to which curricular goals political scientists value most, the outcomes model in the USA devolves the responsibility to departments to decide what is appropriate for their programs. With some degree of variation across regional accrediting agencies, institutions are permitted to define the learning goals appropriate to their missions (Young, Cartwright and Rudy 2014). Within constraints set by the accrediting body and individual colleges or universities, academic departments have autonomy to define program and course outcomes.…”

Section: The Outcomes-based Model Devolution and Standardizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Looking at learning outcomes in political science departmental websites, we can get a sense of the diversity of the discipline around the issue of curriculum goals. Only tentative generalizations can be made, since only around one-quarter of a random sample of departments, including those in doctoral-granting institutions, provided clear learning outcomes on the Web (Young, Cartwright and Rudy 2014). Focusing on a sample of baccalaureate degree-only programs in political science, McClellan and Maurer (2014) found that 37 percent listed outcomes.…”

Section: The Outcomes-based Model Devolution and Standardizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Best practices in the American undergraduate political science curriculum

McClellan¹

2015

Handbook on Teaching and Learning in Political Science and International Relations

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This chapter describes various models for organizing the undergraduate political science major. 1 Though debate and discussion of the proper goals and structure of the political science curriculum go back to the founding of the discipline (Ishiyama, Breuning and Lopez 2006), the present review focuses on activities in the USA since the 1980s to reform the major. Curriculum reform efforts in political science have taken place in the midst of reform waves in higher education. The circumstances surrounding the last reform effort sponsored by the American Political Science Association (APSA), the 1991 'Wahlke Report' on liberal education and the political science major (Association of American Colleges 1990; Wahlke 1991), are illustrative. After several years of studies criticizing academic majors as loosely organized collections of distribution requirements and faddish electives (Association of American Colleges 1985; Zemsky 1989), the Association of American Colleges (AAC) called on disciplinary associations to formulate recommendations to 'strengthen study-in-depth' (Association of American Colleges 1990). In response, APSA appointed a task force with John Wahlke from the University of Arizona as chair. Sharing AAC's view that depth of understanding cannot be reached 'merely by cumulative exposure to more and more subject matter', the authors of the political science report set out to design a model that featured sequential learning, 'building on blocks of knowledge that lead to more sophisticated understanding. .. leaps of imagination. .. and efforts at synthesis' (Association of American Colleges 1990, p. 131). Following a similar process, three distinct curricular frameworks in the discipline have developed since the Wahlke Report. The drive for greater student civic and political engagement began with the service-learning movement of the late 1980s and 1990s (Battistoni and Hudson 1997). Outcomes-based curricula grew as part of the assessment movement, which evolved from external demands for accountability (National Commission on Excellence in Education 1983; National Governors Association 1986) and increased interest in student learning within the academy (Study Group on Conditions of Excellence in Education 1984; McClellan 2009). More recently, the successor to AAC, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), spearheaded the use of 'high-impact practices' (HIPs) as a means to broaden and deepen student attainment of 'essential learning outcomes' (Kuh 2008). Despite the array of curricular models with high potential for increasing student learning, the political science curriculum at most institutions remains organized by distribution requirements. After describing the four alternatives to the distribution model and their status in the discipline, the final section of this chapter will address the question of why the political science curriculum appears impervious to change.

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Designing Political Science Courses

Rosen

2024

Political Pedagogies

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To Resist, Acquiesce, or Internalize: Departmental Responsiveness to Demands for Outcomes Assessment

Cited by 11 publications

References 25 publications

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: Three Decades of Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been: Three Decades of Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education

Best practices in the American undergraduate political science curriculum

Designing Political Science Courses

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