This survey is part of the PKD National Assessment Project and is designed to provide insights into possible student learning outcomes that might result from intercollegiate forensic competition. The survey will include input from coaches, judges and competitors, and is part of a longitudinal effort to link competition with specific learning outcomes that have been identified by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Once the survey responses have been analyzed, the results will be reported in The Forensic and will be publicly available to all interested parties.
Student learning outcomes might include specific skill sets -- such as composition or oral delivery skills. Alternatively, learning outcomes might also include more abstract notions such as Bloom's Taxonomy -- which describes a hierarchy of cognitive domains ranging from knowledge, comprehension, and application (at the lower end) through analysis, synthesis and evaluation at the higher end. Finally, learning outcomes might be conceptualized as a series of intended outcomes such as cognitive practices, intellectual capabilities, integrative learning experiences, ethical practices, intercultural understandings, or leadership practices.
In a general sense, the purpose of this project is three-fold: 1) To identify a series of general and event-specific student learning outcomes that intercollegiate forensic competition is designed to achieve; 2) To design event descriptions that better match intended student learning outcomes; and finally, 3) To create ballots for each event that can provide better assessment of specific student learning outcomes and that can, in conjunction with other components such as the PKD Credit Point System, can be used to generate longitudinal assessment data at both the program and competitor level.
This survey contains fewer than twenty questions and will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete.
