How Disciplinary Differences Shape Student Learning Outcome Assessment

Abstract

Assessment of student learning outcomes (SLOs) has become increasingly important in higher education. Meaningful assessment (i.e., assessment that leads to the improvement of student learning) is impossible without faculty engagement. We argue that one way to elicit genuine faculty engagement is to embrace the disciplinary differences when implementing a universitywide SLO assessment process so that the process reflects discipline-specific cultures and practices. Framed with Biglan’s discipline classification framework, we adopt a case-study approach to examine the SLO assessment practices in four undergraduate academic programs: physics, history, civil engineering, and child and adolescent studies. We demonstrate that one key factor for these programs’ success in developing and implementing SLO assessment under a uniform framework of university assessment is their adaptation of the university process to embrace the unique disciplinary differences.