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Grants in Higher Education

TEAGLE FOUNDATION GRANTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

GRANTS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS

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February 2009

Northwestern University
Supplemental Funds for A Longitudinal Study of Critical Thinking and Postformal Reasoning: Assessing Undergraduate Outcomes Within Disciplinary Contexts | Project Website
Project Leader: Rachelle Brooks

$165,766 over 52 months to expand the scope of this previously funded project to collect a more robust data set, and create and support a large consortium of leading institutions committed to engaging faculty in the assessment of liberal education outcomes within their disciplines.

November 2007

Northwestern University
A Longitudinal Study of Critical Thinking and Postformal Reasoning: Assessing Undergraduate Outcomes Within Disciplinary Contexts | Project Website
Project Leader: Rachelle Brooks

$215,899 over 41 months. Under the auspices of a 2005 Teagle grant, Rachelle Brooks of Northwestern and an advisory board of five faculty in classics developed and pilot-tested a discipline-specific assessment instrument that evaluated the critical thinking abilities—rather than the content-based, discipline-specific knowledge—in classics majors. That pilot study demonstrated the feasibility of measuring cognitive outcomes from a disciplinary perspective, and laid the groundwork for this larger-scale study. Using a three-year longitudinal research design, this study will examine the development of two undergraduate student outcomes—critical thinking (using information to find solutions to puzzles or problems with verifiable correct answers) and postformal reasoning (making judgments about ill-structured problems that have no right or wrong answers)—within the disciplinary frameworks of classics and political science. More specific aims of the study include:

Identifying the extent to which critical thinking is better demonstrated and measured with instruments that attend to disciplinary content than with those that are "interdisciplinary" and designed to be administered to all undergraduates, irrespective of their major field of study.

Examining the extent to which knowledge and skills developed within the major can be "transferred" to other contexts.

Investigating the relationship between the development of critical thinking and postformal reasoning during the college years.

The principal investigator will work with two faculty advisory boards—one for classics and the other for political science—to:

Develop an assessment instrument consisting of two essay questions formulated by the classics and political science faculty advisory boards to evaluate critical thinking, and the Reasoning with Current Issues tool to assess postformal reasoning. The assessment instrument will also gather data on student demographics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity) and academic performance (e.g. high school GPA, college GPA, SAT/ACT scores), as well as information on student opinion on campus activities and student views on college experiences.

Administer the instrument to 1,500 students in either an introductory classics or general humanities course, and in an introductory political science course in fall 2008. Those students will be sought out for re-testing in fall 2010, with the goal being to identify at least 100 classics majors and 100 political science majors among them.

Three liberal arts colleges (Hamilton, Rhodes, and Skidmore Colleges) and one research university (University of Pennsylvania) have agreed to serve as administration sites for the study.

May 2005

Northwestern University
Measuring Undergraduate Cognitive Outcomes from a Disciplinary Perspective
Project Leader: Rachelle Brooks

$25,000 over 12 months. Originally proposed by the Center for Assessment of Higher Education at the University of Maryland, College Park (CAHE) and now housed at Northwestern University, this planning grant explores disciplinary-based assessment of undergraduate cognitive outcomes. Classical Studies will serve as the case study for this investigation. Headed by Rachelle L. Brooks of Northwestern, this project will produce: (1) a report on the Classical Studies Outcomes Indicators meeting; (2) an assessment instrument for measuring undergraduate cognitive outcomes; (3) a set of methodological recommendations for instrument administration; and (4) a report summarizing the methodological review.

Wabash College
"Next Steps" in the "National Study of Liberal Arts Education"
Project Leader: Charles Blaich

$50,000 over 12 months. The Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College will begin a national, multi-institution, longitudinal study of liberal arts education in August, 2005, building relationships with participating institutions through the first year, and beginning the formal study in August, 2006; they are currently in the pilot phase of the project. This project aims to: (1) develop an understanding of the institutional conditions and teaching practices that promote the development of seven liberal arts outcomes: effective reasoning and problem solving, inclination to inquire and lifelong learning, intercultural effectiveness, integration of learning, leadership, moral character, and well-being; and (2) develop institutionally useful and faculty-friendly methods of measuring these outcomes. The Center will measure each outcome using both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and are working with researchers at the University of Iowa, the University of Miami (Ohio), and the University of Michigan to design and implement this study, and to develop short, inexpensive, and easy-to-administer liberal arts assessment instruments. These instruments-a "Liberal Arts Experience Survey" and a "Liberal Arts Outcomes Survey"-will together measure college experiences that lead to the seven outcomes listed above, and the levels of achievement for those outcomes been achieved. Teagle funds will be used to complete the pilot study currently being conducted, analyze the results, and then refine next steps of this work.