College of Arts and Science

AXLE Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan

Mission of AXLE

Students educated in the liberal arts at Vanderbilt University will acquire the foundations for creative expression, critical thinking, and higher-level reasoning necessary to prosper in the 21st century. They shall acquire depth of knowledge in a chosen field of study; breadth of knowledge through exposure to a variety of disciplines represented by the liberal arts tradition; excellence in writing skills, as evidenced by the ability to effectively articulate ideas and defend positions; an understanding of diverse modes of thinking and of evaluating information; and a global and historical perspective of human experience through the exploration of a variety of cultural forms and practices.

Learning Outcomes of the AXLE Curriculum

1. Students will be able to write competently in research-based and/or persuasive modes (depending on the concentration of their major program of studies in the College of Arts and Science).

2. Students will be able to locate and evaluate information from both primary and secondary sources, and be cognizant of issues relating to plagiarism and fair and/or ethical use of sources.

3. Students will demonstrate the ability to engage in diverse modes of thinking and problem-solving.

4. Students will be able to apply both historical and global perspectives in thinking about human experience, current events, cultural difference, etc.

Assessment Methods for AXLE

Per the faculty legislation that created AXLE in February 2004, the AXLE Implementation Committee will be replaced by AXLE Assessment Committee to be convened AY 2008-09. This committee is charged in the legislation as follows:

In the fourth year after it takes effect, the new curriculum shall undergo a general review and assessment. The Dean of the College of Arts and Science shall appoint an independent Review Committee [the AXLE Assessment Committee in this document]. The Review Committee shall consist of tenure-stream College of Arts and Science faculty distributed from the arts and humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. The committee shall evaluate how the curriculum is functioning with respect to the stated “Essential Elements of a Vanderbilt University Liberal Arts Education,” as articulated in this document, and with respect to the goal of preparing Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science graduates for the challenges of the twenty-first century. Factors to be included in this assessment include, but are not limited to (a) the distribution of courses that students are taking, (b) whether the balance of courses taken by students across the various liberal arts categories is reasonable, (c) the success of the Vanderbilt Visions program and the Freshman Writing Seminars in the Freshman Year Experience, (d) the success of the 200-level W courses, (e) the balance of courses being taught by tenure-stream faculty and the exposure of undergraduates to tenure-stream faculty, (f) the degree of curriculum oversight, (g) whether the new curriculum is sufficiently user-friendly and easily understood by faculty, students, and parents, and (h) issues regarding pre-major advising. The Review Committee should ask whether continuing increases in interdisciplinary research and inquiry on the part of the College of Arts and Science faculty suggest a further role for interdisciplinary study within this curriculum. Finally, the Review Committee should evaluate progress toward the establishment of a Center for Writing. (from “A Twenty-First Century Arts and Science Curriculum: Discovery without Boundaries,” pp 16-17).

Thus, the AXLE Assessment Committee will look at many measures. Their work will focus on two major areas: the comparison of AXLE with CPLE to assess the efficacy of AXLE, and the specific assessment of the objectives of the learning outcomes 1-4.

Efficacy of AXLE will be assessed indirectly by

  1. Distribution of enrollments across all courses, and comparison of these enrollments to CPLE figures in order to determine migrations of students, as well as the presumed effect of AXLE on the well-being and resources of individual departments and programs.
  2. Distribution of declarations of major and minors under AXLE, for comparison with CPLE figures, as well as within the context of national trends.
  3. Comparison of student teaching evaluations for the top 10-15 freshman “core” courses (Chem102, PSCI, PSYC, SOC, etc.) and evaluation of narrative commentary. The recent development of an online teaching evaluation tool (fall 2006) makes this feasible and possible.
  4. Interviews with faculty focus groups, representing each of the AXLE distribution requirements (HCA: Humanities and the Creative Arts; IC: International Cultures; US: U.S. History and Culture; SBS: Social and Behavioral Science; MNS: Mathematics and Natural Science; P: Perspectives). The faculty DUS will present for review their most recent assessment information for the learning outcomes identified by each department and program at these focus sessions. (These learning outcome assessment plans can be found in the Focused Report response to 3.3.1)
  5. Interviews with student focus groups, focusing on the learning outcomes listed above, as well as on the Essential Outcomes of a Liberal Arts Education.

The AXLE Assessment Committee will develop rubrics by which to measure successful attainment for the goals stated in the original AXLE document relating to “reasonable balance” of course distribution across areas.

Efficacy of the specific AXLE learning outcomes 1-4 will be directlyassessed as follows:

1. Students will be able to write competently in research-based and/or persuasive modes (depending on the concentration of their major program of studies in the College of Arts and Science).

The First Year Writing Seminar program (FYWS) has its own assessment procedure already in progress, under the purview of the Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program. (See Focused Report response to 3.3.1) This assessment procedure will be used for dual purposes: a) to assess the efficacy of the FYWS program overall (both writing skills and other goals related to freshman learning), and b) to develop a baseline of freshman writing achievement, against which senior year/graduation achievement in writing may be compared for assessment.

Beginning in the spring of 2007, the Writing Advisory Board will review sample portfolios of writing from the FYWS, representing the distribution of areas of study within AXLE. The results will be archived by the Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program, and provided to the AXLE Assessment Committee when it convenes in the fall of 2008. The AXLE Assessment Committee will develop appropriate rubrics for measuring the achievement in writing.

Although the Writing Studio will undergo a separate assessment process (see Focused Report response to 3.3.1 ), the Director of the Writing Studio will serve in an ex officio capacity to the AXLE Assessment Committee in order to facilitate expedient data-retrieval, communication with writing faculty, peer tutors, and other constituencies and sources of information that may be useful to the committee.

2. Students will be able to locate and evaluate information from both primary and secondary sources, and be cognizant of issues relating to plagiarism and fair and/or ethical use of sources.

The information literacy component of the AXLE Learning Outcomes will be assessed in conjunction with CUIL (Committee on Undergraduate Information Literacy), and through the mandatory information literacy tutorial sessions that each FYWS incorporates. This will begin in the spring of 2007.

3. Students will demonstrate the ability to engage in diverse modes of thinking and problem-solving.

4. Students will be able to apply both historical and global perspective in thinking about human experience, current events, cultural difference, etc.

AXLE Assessment Committee will appoint an external (to VU) review committee to work in concert with an internal review committee, composed of faculty and academic support staff (including representation from the other undergraduate schools, Blair School of Music, School of Engineering, and Peabody College of Education) to evaluate the ability of students matriculating under the AXLE curriculum to engage in diverse methodologies and to apply diverse perspectives in problem solving. The resulting review will function as a baseline rubric for AXLE, against which future reviews and assessments will be measured. The emphasis in AXLE on interdisciplinary learning, critical thinking, and mastery of diverse methodologies and perspectives differentiates it sharply from its predecessor, CPLE, which had a more traditional focus on department- and discipline-based and contained learning. Thus, the goal of the AXLE Assessment Committee will be to bring into focus a snapshot of the undergraduate learning experience at the end of AXLE’s first cycle of students, as they are about to graduate. This baseline snapshot will be used to annually assess and evaluate the future achievement of students studying under AXLE. Results will be presented to the Dean of the College and the Faculty Council for review, and for use in curriculum upkeep and enhancement.

The AXLE Assessment Committee will be responsible for collecting a significant sample of material produced by undergraduates to be provided to the external reviewers. This material should encompass departmental honors projects; the writing portfolios collected by the Undergraduate Writing Program; survey statistics collected by the office of the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, regarding students’ self-identified understanding of and ability to apply inter-disciplinary and global perspectives; Career Center and Institutional Research statistics on career goals and progress to graduate/professional school by the first AXLE graduates

The AXLE Assessment Committee shall include faculty and academic support staff from the College of Arts and Science, including but not limited to directors of undergraduate studies, departmental honors directors, interdisciplinary program directors, and others.

Representation from other schools and units at Vanderbilt shall include the Center for Teaching; Central Library; Dean of Students’ Stratton Center for Academic Counseling for Student Athletes; the Psychological and Counseling Center; the Career Center; the Dean of Commons; the Center for Ethics; and decanal-level colleagues from the other three undergraduate schools.

Ex officio members to include: the associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs; the associate dean who serves as chair of the Curriculum Committee; the Director of the Writing Studio; the Director of Undergraduate Writing; the Instructional Coordinator for Central Library, et al.

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