Learning Goals
Government Department's Learning Goals
The University’s Learning Goals
Expectations for Writing and Reading Requirements
Expectations for General Expository and Discipline-specific Writing and Reading
Expectations for the Development of Writing and Reading Skills
Expectations for Assessment of Current Requirements and Measures to Encourage Writing and Reading Skills
Writing and Reading Standards in the Major
Course Matrix 1 and Course Matrix 2
The Government Department has identified the following learning expectations as the most important in fulfilling our mission:
1) Students should be grounded in an understanding of the historical debates surrounding political ideas and government, especially as related to democratic governance.
2) Students should be exposed to the great tradition of western political theory.
3) Students should be exposed to the field of public law through the study of leading decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court on issues pertaining to the powers of the national government, the relations between the states and the nation, and civil right and liberties.
4) Students should have some understanding of politics outside the U.S. and how the U.S. fits into the international system.
5) Students should acquire substantial knowledge of current political and governmental structures and processes in the United States.
6) Students should be able to define, recognize, apply, and critique theories, especially as they apply to politics and political science.
7) Students should be able to assess, weigh, and apply evidence when making arguments.
8) Students should develop competent language skills and be able to write a paper with a clear thesis, organization and no distracting grammatical errors.
9) Students should develop competent skills in developing, organizing, and writing research papers.
10) Students should be prepared to participate meaningfully and intelligently in politics.
The mission of our department is to offer a high quality liberal arts oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the discipline of political science. We view our role, not as training students for a particular profession, or specifically to pursue graduate study in political science, but rather as creating an intellectual environment where students can develop their academic skills. We expect to help students learn to think more critically about their world, and prepare to become thoughtful, participating citizens and productive members of society.
To fulfill the requirements for a Government major, our students must complete four core courses (one course for each of the primary subfields). Overall, each core course covers its respective substantive knowledge expectation and all of the critical skills and language and research expectations listed above. Our learning expectations are then extended, deepened and broadened in our upper-level elective courses. The following discussion explains in more detail how our courses fulfill each learning expectation.
An analysis of our course matrix 1 and course matrix 2 suggests that, as a department, we have been effective in meeting expectations 1 through 5. For example, for expectation #1, historical debates, all three of our lower division courses give this expectation primary or secondary emphasis, as do over 80% of our upper division courses. While only 15% of our courses are political theory courses, 58% of our courses emphasize knowledge of intellectual traditions and Western political theory, or expectation #2. With regard to expectation #3, public law and constitutional issues, while only 15% of our courses are designated as law courses, 58% of our courses stress knowledge of public law and constitutional issues.
Our course matrix 1 and course matrix 2 also reveal that 48% of our courses emphasize American political structures and processes and the same is true for world politics, expectations #4 and #5, respectively. For these expectations, the General Education assessment tests for Govt. 1, Essentials of Government and Govt. 35, World Politics, show that our students have received—and retained!—a solid grounding in the fundamentals of these subfields. For example, in spring 2003, a majority of students answered a majority of the questions—ranging from Constitutional principles, the structure of the U.S. government, the three branches of government and federalism—correctly. For Govt. 35, World Politics, a composite of comparative and international politics, 70% of students correctly answered the questions on the institutions and policies of the German, British and Chinese governments, while 80% correctly answered the international politics questions, ranging from international relations theory, the historical and ideational junctures in the evolution of the international system, nationalism, intergovernmental organizations, and international political economy.
Based on the available assessment data, the department has been very effective in meeting learning expectation #7: students should be able to assess, weigh, and apply evidence when making arguments. Four questions on the senior survey (4, 17, 18 and 19) explicitly asked students whether their Government courses developed and refined their critical thinking skills, largely defined as the ability to assess, weigh, and apply evidence when making arguments. Fifty-three percent of students stated that in all or most of their courses professors discussed how to improve critical thinking skills, while 37% responded that their professors discussed how to improve critical thinking skills in some of their courses. Similarly, 81% of students noted that they were satisfied with the critical skills the Government major provided them. The critical skills acquired by our students also enable them to define, recognize, apply and critique theories, thus fulfilling expectation #6. Finally, more than 80% of students either strongly agreed or agreed that their Government courses helped them to critically analyze moral and ethical components of policy and political questions and political and policy arguments. The surveyed alumni averred that developing critical thinking skills and critically analyzing political and policy arguments were the strongest attributes of their Government courses. Consequently, we feel that our department has been very effective in fulfilling our critical thinking learning expectation.
In addition, the writing assignments in our courses signify that we cultivate an environment conducive to the attainment of learning expectations #8 and #9: students should be able to write a paper with a clear thesis, organization and no distracting grammatical errors, and students should develop competent skills in developing, organizing, and writing research papers. While our assessment data does not measure the extent to which students have developed their writing ability, it does suggest that we provide ample opportunity for students to do so. For example, ninety-three percent of students stated that they wrote at least one paper in most of their courses, while the vast majority also stated that they wrote at least one research paper.
Moreover, the department has also been very effective in meeting learning expectation #10: students should be prepared to participate meaningfully and intelligently in politics. More than 87% of the seniors surveyed replied that they are more likely to participate in political and community activities after having been a student in the Government Department. Nearly forty-percent of our students who were surveyed expect to work a political job or for state, local or federal government. As a result, we are confident that our program has effectively met its political participation expectation.
The University’s Learning Goals
Three years ago the University identified and defined the following six learning goals:
1) Competence in the Disciplines: The ability to demonstrate competence in at least one major field of study. Additionally, this learning goal requires students to demonstrate informed understandings of other fields, drawing on the knowledge and skills of disciplines outside the major.
2) Analysis and Problem Solving: The ability of students to identify and diagnose problems; organize and critically evaluate relevant information of a qualitative and quantitative nature; develop reasonable arguments and effective solutions.
3) Communication: The ability to read, write, speak and listen effectively. The ability to respond, with understanding and appreciation to a wide variety of communicative acts.
4) Information Competence: The ability to make effective and ethical use of information resources and technology for personal and professional needs.
5) Cultural Legacies: Acquisition of knowledge of human accomplishments in the creative and performing arts and the achievements of human thought.
6) Values and Pluralism: The ability to apply ethical standards in order to make moral judgments with respect to individual conduct and citizenship, and to recognize the diversity of human experiences and cultures, both within the United States and internationally. The development of positive social attitudes, values and behaviors, including the valuation of service as a component of active citizenship.
There is significant overlap between the department’s learning expectations and the University’s learning goals. Based on the above analysis of the department’s effectiveness in meeting its learning expectations, we are confident that we have also fulfilled University learning objectives #2 (Analysis and Problem Solving), #3 (Communication), #4 (Information Competence), and #6 (Values and Pluralism).
Teaching our students to assess, weigh, and apply evidence when making arguments has also prepared them to engage in analysis and problem solving. Similarly, by preparing our students to write a paper with a clear thesis, organization and no distracting grammatical errors, as well as writing research papers, we believe that our courses have enabled students to fulfill the University’s communication and information competence objectives. And since the vast majority of our students expect to participate in political and community activities after graduation and almost one-half expect to work a political or government job, we also clearly fulfill the University’s values and pluralism objective. While we are confident that our courses meet the University’s competence in the disciplines and cultural legacies goals, at this time, our data does not contain the information needed to assess directly how and to what extent.
Expectations for Writing and Reading Requirements
1) Government Department faculty have generally high expectations for our students to do extensive writing and reading in our courses. By this we mean that virtually every upper division course, both core required and elective courses, requires students to write both essay examinations and some kind of paper. The paper may be a research paper or it may be some other writing exercise. For example, in Govt. 110 and Govt. 111 the paper asks students to write an analytical essay examining the positions of one or more of the political thinkers assigned in the course. In consultation with the professor, students select a major concept addressed by the thinker(s), define it, explain the assumptions behind it, and extract the implications from it for the thinker(s)’ larger position. In other courses the assignment may be a more traditional research paper.
In general terms our course syllabi will reflect that our courses require students to do a reasonably extensive quantity of reading and that the reading assignments are challenging. There is, certainly, a considerable range across our fifty-plus upper division courses so making a generalization that fits all of them is not possible. We can observe, however, that unlike some upper division courses in other departments in our college, our upper division courses will never rely solely on a single textbook. There may be a textbook assigned, but it will be accompanied by other books and/or articles that present students with analytically challenging and differing treatments of the subject of study. We want government majors to be able to draw upon multiple sources of information and analysis to understand complex concepts, processes, events, etc. We want them to be able to recognize and apply complex concepts and ideas and to write about them clearly and cogently. We want them to be able to make a persuasive written argument, using appropriate evidence to support their position, and we want them to be able to do this writing clear, well-organized prose that is not plagued by distracting errors in grammar, diction or syntax.
Expectations for General Expository and Discipline-specific Writing and Reading.
2) We expect students to be able to write clear, reasonably error-free prose in response to questions on examinations and assigned papers, as noted above under (1). Our students do not always meet these expectations of course; we find it is a problem even to get them to proofread their work before turning it in. Various members of our faculty have strategies for coping with this, among them turning back sub-standard work and requiring that the student re-write and resubmit the paper for example. We are attempting to develop a broad-based description of what adequate discipline-specific writing will look like; a copy of a “sample grading rubric” is attached (Appendix 3) here to illustrate an initial effort.
Expectations for the Development of Writing and Reading Skills.
3) Our discussion of this subject as part of the self-study process has convinced us that we should definitely try to articulate more clearly, both for ourselves and especially for our students, what our expectations for them are with respect to writing and reading skills. We have, as individual faculty members, our own ideas of what students should be doing in our courses and in response to our assignments. We find ourselves often disappointed, but we also have examples of students who rise to the high expectations of demanding assignments. We have come to believe that it would in fact be useful to try to come to general agreement about expectations for writing and reading and then to articulate and promulgate these to our students. Further, we will also try to identify strategies we might use to help improve our students’ writing. If we are all urging students to perform at a similar level and explaining to them clearly what they need to be able to do, this should serve to produce greater solidarity among us and, we hope, have a salutary effect on students’ overall performance. We have decided as a result of this discussion to make writing and reading skills in the major the focus of our upcoming annual faculty retreat that is held at the beginning of each fall semester.
Expectations for Assessment of Current Requirements and Measures to Encourage Writing and Reading Skills
4) We assume this is requesting what expectations we might have for evaluating our current major requirements; we hope that use of the word “assessment” here is not meant to refer to learning outcomes assessment.
As we suggest at various points in this self-study, we believe the major as it is currently designed is fundamentally sound and well structured. The core required courses assure that students have broad foundational knowledge across the most widely recognized major subfields of the discipline of political science. Their choice of electives permits them a reasonable amount of freedom to pursue their own interests. We have and continue to resist the suggestion made to us in the last review that we increase the unit requirement of the major to accommodate additional course requirements. We strongly believe in the fundamental liberal arts orientation of our major and find ourselves in disagreement with those departments that have inflated the numbers of units they require of their majors, thus decreasing and mostly eliminating students’ opportunities to have any “free electives” to choose in completing their baccalaureate degree. Government majors rarely need to go beyond 120 units to complete their degree.
We have recently revised the international relations concentration significantly and its newly revised version appears for the first time in the 2002-04 catalog. With that revision we made changes in the concentration’s core requirements and we have added important new courses that were necessary to update our offerings in that field. These include the new courses in political economy, nationalism, and in globalization, for example. While the IR concentration does require 42 units, students are permitted to take up to twelve units of electives toward the major from courses related to international relations offered by other departments such as history, economics, sociology and others.
New course offerings and possible revisions to our present offerings in other areas of the curriculum will no doubt emerge from the new group of faculty who have joined us in the last few years; three more are arriving in fall, 2003, and we will invite their scrutiny of our curriculum with a view to making suggestions of their own.
We hope to encourage the development of our students’ writing and reading skills through the measures discussed in (3) above.
Writing and Reading Standards in the Major
To date, the department has not articulated specific writing and reading standards in the major. However, as explained in the expectations for writing and reading in the major noted above., we expect our majors to do a significant amount of reading and writing in all their courses. All courses, including lower division, require substantial weekly reading assignments. The breadth of the course requirements ensures that majors will read a broad diversity of works in the discipline, including primary classical texts. The four required courses emphasize analytical and theoretical readings.
Almost every course, including lower division, requires some kind of paper in addition to an essay component in examinations, while those few courses which do not require papers have essay examinations. A typical major is required to fulfill several different kinds of writing assignments. Two of the required courses have research papers, and seven other upper division courses require research papers. Many courses require analytical papers. And all courses require the demonstration of competent language skills.
As noted above, nearly all of our students stated that they wrote at least one paper in most of their courses, while the vast majority also conveyed that they wrote at least one research paper. In the near future, we plan to articulate more clearly, both for ourselves and especially for our students, what our expectations for them are with respect to writing and reading skills, and we will use our sample grading rubric to assess the extent to which our students are meeting our, and the University’s, writing expectations and objectives.
