To the Editor:
The “22 potentially useful ways to assess a course’s quality” (“Is Your Psychology 102 Course Any Good?” The Chronicle, December 12) do not include any of the following, which to my mind are the most important measures of a course’s quality:
How well prepared are “graduates” of PSY 102 for PSY 103 (or whatever comes next in the psychology curriculum) in skills and competencies identified by the faculty as essential at this benchmark moment? These skills and competencies could include, for example, understanding statistical analysis in social-science research, or writing a 5-to-10-page report demonstrating successful use of empirical evidence and critical thinking in the analysis and solution of a problem in cognitive or developmental psychology.
In what ways does this course advance the liberal-arts mission for students who take it? For example, to borrow and paraphrase from the mission statement of the School of Culture and Society at the College of New Jersey, in what ways do students who complete PSY 102 demonstrate improvements in the following areas, among others: analytical rigor, effective communication in speech and writing, wise use of technology, ethical reasoning and compassion, understanding of different cultural perspectives, creative problem solving, and collaboration with diverse partners?
In what ways does this course, seemingly a second-semester experience, prepare students for a transformative learning experience later in the curriculum, such as an independent study for undergraduate research, an internship, or an experiential-learning course?
I admit that these three criteria may be more difficult to assess than the 22 listed in the chart accompanying the article. However, the measures you provided focus exclusively on measures internal to the hypothetical course. Course-specific assessment fails to provide a macroperspective of the college education in which courses are constituents of a larger curriculum that builds toward a summative capstone experience.
If we limit our view only to what transpires in an isolated course, we will be less likely to succeed in ways that should be our most important measure: the preparation of our students for life-long learning in the rapidly changing and globally interconnected world of the 21st century.
Benjamin Rifkin
Dean of the School of Culture and Society
College of New Jersey
Ewing, N.J.