AAC&U News | April 2005

At Portland State University, Assessments Target Critical Thinking

Critical thinking--the ability to engage with ideas from different perspectives, interpret and evaluate evidence, and form one's own views--is widely recognized as a skill that prepares students to participate in democracy and contribute to an innovative economy. It is also one of the skills most commonly associated with undergraduate education (as David Drew's editorial, featured in this month's Perspectives section, makes clear). But while students' knowledge of content within the disciplines may be relatively easy to evaluate, assessing what they "critically" do with that content, how they integrate knowledge from one course with what they learn in another, and how they apply their learning in non-academic settings requires a broad, interdisciplinary approach.

One college that has made such an effort to assess critical thinking across the curriculum is Portland State University (PSU). University Studies, Portland State's general education program, has long used freshman-year portfolios to deepen student learning and assess student achievement of critical thinking. Today, PSU is also piloting a plan that could extend the use of electronic portfolios throughout the undergraduate years.

The University Studies Program

When PSU's University Studies program was founded in 1994, the faculty who helped design the program identified four key goals for student learning--"Inquiry and Critical Thinking," "Communication," "The Diversity of Human Experience," and "Ethics and Social Responsibility." These goals, says Dean of University Studies Terrel Rhodes, reflect the school's understanding of what its graduates need to know to be responsible citizens and successful workers. "Critical thinking is on everyone's list," he says, and is the most common outcome identified by faculty who develop learning expectations for the majors.

The first component of the University Studies sequence is Freshman Inquiry, a yearlong course that introduces students to critical thinking and the other goals of the program. Designed by interdisciplinary teams of faculty, Freshman Inquiry courses are organized thematically. By examining such issues as the history and ecology of the Columbia River basin or the relationship between human communities and natural disasters, students in Freshman Inquiry learn to analyze information and consider multiple approaches to solving problems.

In their second year, PSU students further hone these skills through three Sophomore Inquiry classes. Although these classes are more closely associated with individual majors than those taught for Freshman Inquiry--current offerings cover such topics as African studies, environmental sustainability, and medieval studies--they maintain an interdisciplinary orientation and a thematic focus. In the junior year, students then choose one of these Sophomore Inquiry topics to pursue in greater depth through a required cluster of upper-division classes.

The culmination of the University Studies program is the senior-year capstone. Students in the capstone gain service-learning experience through projects that range from providing support to small, African American-run businesses to writing water-quality reports for the city of Portland, from assisting local public schools to testing eco-friendly roofs. Through such projects, students apply the skills they have developed in the University Studies program to real issues in the local community.

Assessing Critical Thinking

The primary performance-based assessment tool used in the University Studies program is the electronic portfolio. The e-portfolios, which evolved from the paper portfolios that were used in the early years of the program, currently are required of all first-year students in Freshman Inquiry. Judith Patton, PSU's director of University Studies, emphasizes that the portfolios "were put into the course as a way of supporting deeper student learning." Focusing primarily on the learning process and secondarily on assessment, she says, "keeps assessment grounded in what's done in the classroom."

Students build their portfolios throughout the freshman year, compiling work that demonstrates their progress toward the four goals of University Studies. At the end of the year, students complete a final assignment, reframing the goals of the program in their own words, and write short essays explaining how the work they have selected demonstrates each goal. Portfolios are then assessed by teams of faculty and graduate students on a scale of one to six according to rubrics established for each goal. The results of these assessments allow faculty to see which goals scored highest in which Freshman Inquiry classes, and can then be used in subsequent years to improve the teaching of specific goals.

The work submitted in portfolios to demonstrate critical thinking sometimes is drawn from assignments specifically designed to stimulate problem solving and interdisciplinary thinking, but critical thinking is fostered throughout Freshman Inquiry and can potentially be demonstrated through any assignment. In fact, in Patton's view, the development of critical thinking skills is as much a function of the interdisciplinarity of University Studies as it is the result of particular assignments. One of the program's overarching goals is to achieve a "making visible of process and content," she says--and in the case of a skill like critical thinking, which is itself as much about a "process" of thought as it is about any specific content, electronic portfolios further this aim by compelling students to reflect on their learning.

Critical thinking skills are also well served by the electronic portfolios, according to Terrel Rhodes, because "the electronic medium allows students to think more eclectically and dynamically." In electronic portfolios, students can document critical thinking with graphics, audio, and video files as well as through text, and as a result, he argues, "the e-portfolio allows students who are not primarily linear thinkers to better display their critical thinking abilities."

Expanding Assessment

This spring, PSU is piloting a program that extends the use of electronic portfolios into the Sophomore Inquiry and capstone classes. Such an approach, if fully implemented, would allow faculty and administrators to gauge the success of the entire University Studies curriculum by tracking student development according to the same goal-based rubrics used in the freshman year; it could also enrich learning by encouraging students to reflect on their growth across the undergraduate years.

Expanding the assessment program, however, also presents a host of problems that have yet to be fully resolved. Kathi Ketcheson, PSU's director of institutional research and planning, sees institutional support of assessment as scholarly work as particularly important to maintaining faculty involvement in PSU's portfolio program--and possibly as a way of inspiring faculty to connect the assessment of general education goals with departmental goals. Continued funding, administrative commitment, and support for faculty development are also essential to such a broad-based assessment effort. At PSU and elsewhere, Ketcheson says, "compliance with accreditation standards may be used as an impetus for assessment, [but] it cannot sustain it as part of the institution's teaching and learning culture over time."

Terrel Rhodes, who has advocated for assessment since he arrived at Portland State, admits such large institutional challenges but also stresses how far assessment efforts have come. Rather than starting from scratch, he says, those interested in building an assessment program today can look to successful programs at other schools for models. He advises that colleges adapt existing rubrics and base their assessments on student work already generated in classes. Finally, assessment programs--as Portland State has found--can be built incrementally, he says: "Start small and build."

More information about the University Studies program is available on Portland State University's Web site.

AAC&U's recently released board statement, Our Students' Best Work: A Framework for Accountability Worthy of Our Mission, offers an approach to assessment that takes account of the complexity of college-level learning and the diversity of American colleges and universities. AAC&U also has many other assessment resources available online.