Degree ProfileBringing new currency to the meaning of U.S. degrees

January 2011

Holiday Hart McKiernanLumina Foundation for EducationVice President, Operations / General Counsel

Tim BirtwistleLeeds Law School - Leeds Metropolitan UniversityJean Monnet ChairProfessor Emeritus, Law and Policy of Higher Education

Peter EwellNational Center for Higher Education Management SystemsVice President

Carol Geary SchneiderAssociation of American Colleges and UniversitiesPresident

shift the national conversation from what is taught to what is learned.

The Degree Profile will

Why Do We Need a Degree Profile?

First and foremost: because quality matters.

And quality is about learning.

To increase the proportion of Americans with high-quality degrees and

credentials to 60 percent by 2025.

•Increasing the number of degrees requires attention to quality and transparency

•Learning is valued by employers

•High-quality degrees are essential element to a knowledge economy

•.

How does quality factor into Goal 2025?

Why Do We Need a Degree Profile?

• Quality is about learning

• U.S. higher education lacks a clear definition of the learning that degrees represent

• Stakeholders are demanding transparency and architecture for facing challenges

In order to meet the U.S. needs

• All of higher education needs to produce quality degrees

• Higher education must meet the needs of the 21st century student

• Innovation and new deliver models must be grounded in quality – a shared understanding of what at a degree represents

Why Now?

National and state attainment goals like Goal 2025.

Timely lessons from international work such as the Bologna Process.

By 2018 63% of jobs in the U.S. will require postsecondary education.

• Now more than ever we need a common understanding of the learning and skills represented by a degree.

The Journey

• Reflecting on the clear need, we convened a team of stakeholders and thought leaders.

• It was time, not just to commit, but to commit it to paper.

Degree ProfileBringing new currency to the meaning of U.S. degrees

January 2011

Background

• Qualifications Frameworks in Many Other Countries

• Bologna Process Common Outcomes Benchmarks (e.g. “Dublin Descriptors”)

• AAC&U LEAP Outcomes Statements and Rubrics

• State-Level Outcomes Frameworks in U.S. (e.g. UT, WI, CSU, ND, VA)

• Some Alignment of Cross-Cutting Abilities Statements Among Institutional Accreditors

Alignment of Expected General Learning Outcomes Statements Across Regional Accreditors

• General Education Knowledge (4)

• Language and Communications Skills (4)

• Information Literacy (4)

• Scientific/Quantitative Literacy (4)

• Life-long Learning (4)

• Ethics (4)

AAC&U LEAP Outcomes and Rubrics

• Statements of What Students Should Know and Be Able to Do, Successively Developed Over Time

• Address Broad and Integrated Content Knowledge, Intellectual Skills, Personal and Social Responsibility, and Applied/Integrative Learning

• Developed Through Employer Feedback as Well as the Higher Education Community

• Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) Rubrics Being Tested Nationwide

Lumina Degree Profile• Three Degree Levels: Associate, Bachelor’s, and

Master’s

• Five Learning Areas: Specialized Knowledge, Broad/Integrative Knowledge, Intellectual Skills, Applied Learning, and Civic Learning

• Framed as Successively Inclusive Hierarchies of “Action Verbs” to Describe Outcomes at Each Degree Level

• Intended as a “Beta” Version, for Testing, Experimentation, and Further Development Beginning this Year

How the Panel Approached Its Work

• Wide Literature Review (Other National QFs and International Writings on Outcomes Statements and How to Frame Them)

• Review of Outcomes Adopted by U.S. Colleges and Universities (Hart Research, 2009)

• Emphasis on Application and Integration (as Distinctively “American” Undergraduate Attributes)

• But Confined to Things that Institutions Actively Teach (Therefore Few Values or Attitudes Included)

• Emphasized Civic Learning as an area where the U.S. already is an international leader

An Example: Communication Skills

Associate Level: The student presents substantially error-free prose in both argumentative and narrative forms to general and specialized audiences

Bachelor’s Level: The student constructs sustained, coherent arguments and/or narratives and/or explications of technical issues and processes, in two media, to general and specialized audiences

Master’s Level: The student creates sustained, coherent arguments or explanations and reflections on his or her work or that of collaborators (if applicable) in two or more media or languages, to both general and specialized audiences

An Example: Engaging Diverse Perspectives

Associate Level: Describes how different cultural perspectives would affect his or her interpretations of prominent problems in politics, society, the arts, and/or global relations

An Example: Engaging Diverse Perspectives

Bachelor’s Level: Constructs a cultural, political, or technological alternative vision of either the natural or human world, embodied in a written project, laboratory report, exhibit, performance, or community service design; defines the distinct patterns in this alternative vision; and explains how they differ from current realities

An Example: Engaging Diverse Perspectives

Master’s Level: Addresses a core issue in his/her field of study from the perspective of either a different point in time, or a different culture, political order, or technological context, and explains how the alternative perspective contributes to results that depart from current norms, dominant cultural assumptions, or technologies—all demonstrated through a project, paper, or performance

Potential Applications of the Draft

To guide

• Quality reviews of institutions

• Development of new assessments

• Faculty in curricular development

• Development of outcomes-based state articulation and transfer standards

Potential Applications of the Draft

To provide

• Common template for accreditation reporting

• Basis for establishing “learning contracts” between entering students and institutions

Degree ProfileBringing new currency to the meaning of U.S. degrees

January 2011

Where We Are Now

Near-Consensus on Essential Competencies

Strong Empirical Evidence that Engaged, High Effort Practices Result in Learning Outcomes Gains AND in Greater Likelihood of Completion. - High Impact Practices (Kuh 2008; Swaner and Brownell, 2010)

Where We Are Now

In short, we know “what works” – to foster both learning gains and greater completion…

…but many students aren’t doing “what works.”

Where We Are Now

Abundant evidence that too many students do not benefit from “what works” and make very limited gains in college.

Arum/Roksa study: Academically Adrift Blaich/Wabash Longitudinal Studies ACT/ETS Studies Employer Reports Faculty Members’ Own Reports

Why AAC&U Welcomes the Degree Profile

• Access to excellence remains exclusionary – and that has become an unaffordable luxury.

• Making excellence inclusive is our most important educational priority.

The Opportunity Before Us

For faculty, it underscores a shift from “my work to our work.”

Faculty invited to ensure programs feature purposeful research and assignments the build competence, teaching students to apply knowledge to unscripted problems.

The Opportunity Before Us

For students, it provides a roadmap they really need and moves students’ own work to the center of assessment and accountability.

Students are invited to share responsibility for learning and work needed in order to progress, accomplish, and achieve graduation level competence.

Degree ProfileBringing new currency to the meaning of U.S. degrees

January 2011

Lessons to date?What we can learn from the experiences of other

countries

Higher education as a ‘supertanker’

What type is it?

• Generally 3 types* of Qualification Framework recognised as being used:

• Communications• Reforming• Transformational• There is no ‘one size fits all’• Each must be assessed against its

own objectives and context (scope being important)* Allais S (2007) The rise and fall of the NQF: A critical analysis of the South African NQF, PhD thesis, University of Witwatersrand

Where might we look?• Europe

overarching frameworks (EHEA and EQF) national frameworks like Denmark,

Ireland, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland

• Australia• New Zealand• South Africa• Canada• India, China, Japan

Why a supertanker?

• “Many countries are developing …. frameworks ……….. there is limited evidence. more to say about purpose … than .. achieve(ment)..” - Raffe D. 2009, ILO Paper 48

• Higher education cycles are medium term• Recruit a student1/2011• She starts 8/2011• She graduates 6/2015 (possibly) or 2017 (likely)

• Where is the data? What data? When?

So what do we look for?

• “impact and effectiveness” - Evaluation of the Academic Infrastructure: final report August 2010 (QAA) London

• “Overall the evaluation has demonstrated .. over the past decade … providers have engaged with and embedded …. within their own .. policies and procedures.” - SUPRA

• “… the recently revised framework ….. useful for programme and module development …. assessment criteria …. descriptors useful…” - Submissions to inform preparation of the Final Report, August 2010

#1 England

#2 Ireland• “Tensions between an outcomes-based

approach …. [and one based on] … inputs”

• “Framework is beginning to impact …. learners … choices, …. teaching and learning, …. progression.”

• “…. the nature of the Framework as a long-term, dynamic process.”

-NQAI (2009) Framework Implementation and Impact Study, Dublin

-2010 Study Report.

#3 Australia• “AQF proposed reforms unnecessarily

rigid.” – Go8 17th, October 2010

• “Strengthened AQF approved.” – AQF Newsletter, November 2010

• “Australia. One country. One qualification system.” – Study In Australia, January 2011

• “Universities are supportive of a strong and widely utilised qualifications framework for Australia, …… to bring Australian arrangements into line with international best practice.” – Universities Australia, 2010

Conclusions• Making the implicit explicit helps:

−Students/learners−Stakeholders:

• Faculty• Funders• Employers

• Making sense of diversity helps

• If the sector engages with the profile it is an enabling mechanism

• It is a living tool not an ossified representation of higher education

What Happens Next?

• The national conversation begins today

• Testing in a variety of settings with a variety of partners

• Future feedback forums and national conversation

• Opportunity for U.S. higher education

shift the national conversation from what is taught to what is learned.

The Degree Profile will

Questions?