Three research-based programs and two professional programs were identified by July 1, 2013, and volunteered to participate in the pilot program during fall 2013. This group of five programs comprised the original pilot group. In all cases, the intent was to develop an approach to defining graduate student outcomes that aligned with existing evaluative processes, procedures, and measures.

The Charge

Participating Programs

Commonalities Among Submissions

 

The Charge

Each research-based pilot program was asked to: summarize its graduate educational goals and student outcomes; summarize the process by which the program, in consultation with students, arrived at its outcomes; and describe the framework the program would use to assess its outcomes. In formulating their graduate student outcomes, these graduate programs were invited to consult a draft set of “six intellectual principles” that had been developed by a subcommittee of the larger Graduate Student Outcomes and Assessment Committee. The research-based programs were asked to report their results by December 31, 2013.

The two professional pilot programs were asked to: map their existing student educational outcomes to the draft “principles”; identify any outcomes that could not be mapped to the draft principles; identify additional principles that were relevant to the respective programs’ outcomes; and summarize the process by which the program arrived at its results.  These programs were also asked to report their results by the end of December 2013.

Participating Programs

The five programs in the original pilot and their DGSs were:

Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology (Claudia Neuhauser, DGS)

Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication (Donald Ross, DGS)

Quantitative Methods in Education/Educational Psychology (Ernest Davenport, DGS; Michael Rodriguez, Track Coordinator)

Communication Sciences and Disorders (Duluth) (Faith Loven, DGS)

Scientific and Technical Communication (Ann Hill Duin, DGS)

In addition, five research-based graduate programs were invited to participate in a “streamlined” pilot that required the programs to produce only a two-page document.

The five pilot programs using the “streamlined” approach and their DGSs were:

Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics (Perry Leo, DGS)

Applied Economics (Elizabeth Davis, DGS [outgoing])

Child Psychology (Michael Maratsos, DGS)

History (Barbara Welke, DGS)

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (Michel Janssen, DGS)

 

Commonalities among submissions

All of the submissions reflected the individual character of the particular pilot program; however, commonalities also emerged among the ten submissions and these often reflected the six draft principles/domains.

The most prevalent outcomes, cited by most programs, were:

Knowledge and scholarship

Research and methodological skills relevant to the field

Communication skills

Education for service, citizenship in the discipline, professionalism

Pedagogy/training for teaching

Collaboration/interdisciplinary skills

Practical application of knowledge

For more detailed information about the pilot project, please download the preliminary Graduate Student Outcomes Report.