University Learning Outcomes for Graduate Programs | California State University, Bakersfield

CSU Bakersfield has articulated minimum learning requirements for recipients of graduate degrees, called University Learning Outcomes for Graduate Programs. In addition, each graduate program sets discipline-specific Program Learning Outcomes that are mapped onto the curriculum and assessed. These learning outcomes may focus on civic learning, professional standards, integrity, and ethical behavior that are not specifically identified below.

Outcome I: Students Will Demonstrate Broad, Integrative Knowledge

Examples include:

Articulates how the field has developed in relation to other major domains of inquiry or practice.
Designs and executes an applied, investigative or creative work that draws on the perspectives and methods of other fields and assesses the resulting gains and difficulties.
Articulates and defends the significance and implications of his or her specialized work in terms of challenges, trends and developments in a social or global context.

Outcome II: Students Will Develop Specialized Knowledge

Examples include:

Elucidates the major theories, research methods and approaches to inquiry, and/or schools of practice in the field; articulates relevant sources; and illustrates their relationship to allied fields.
Assesses the contributions of major figures and organizations in the field; describes its major methodologies and practices; and implements at least two such methodologies and practices through projects, papers, exhibits or performances.
Articulates major challenges involved in practicing the field, elucidates its leading edges, and delineates its current limits with respect to theory, knowledge, ethics, and practice.
Initiates, assembles, arranges and reformulates ideas, concepts, designs and techniques in carrying out a project directed at a challenge in the field beyond conventional boundaries.

Outcome III: Students Will Practice Intellectual Skills Such As Analytic Inquiry, Use of Information Resources, Engaging Diverse Perspectives, Quantitative Fluency, and Communication Fluency

Examples include:

Disaggregates, adapts, reformulates and employs in an essay or project principal ideas, techniques or methods at the forefront of the field. (Analytic inquiry)
Provides adequate evidence through papers, projects, notebooks, computer files or catalogues of expanding, assessing or refining either a recognized information resource or an information base within the field. (Use of information resources)
Addresses in a project, paper or performance a core issue in the field from the perspective of a different point in time or a different culture, political order or technological context, and elucidates how the perspective contributes to results that depart from current norms, dominant cultural assumptions or technologies. (Engaging diverse perspectives)
Not seeking a degree in a quantitative field employs and applies mathematical, logical or statistical tools to problems within the field in a project, paper or performance, while the student seeking a degree in a quantitative field articulates and undertakes multiple appropriate applications of quantitative methods, concepts and theories. (Quantitative fluency)
Creates sustained, coherent explanations and reflections on the student’s own work in two or more media or languages to both general and specialized audiences. (Communication fluency)

Outcome IV: Students Will Conduct Applied Learning

Examples include:

Creates a discrete project, paper, exhibit, performance or other appropriate task reflecting integration of knowledge acquired in practicum, work, community or research activities with knowledge and skills from at least two disciplines representing different segments of the curriculum (e.g., computer science and anthropology); documents the sources of the knowledge and skills reflected in the integration; articulates in writing how these elements influenced the resulting product; and assesses the significance of the work in light of major debates or developments in the primary field(s).
Creates, designs and implements a performance or project in an out-of-class setting requiring application of advanced knowledge to a practical challenge; articulates insights gained from the field experience; assesses, with appropriate citations, selected approaches or scholarly debates applicable to the problem; articulates a reasoned judgment on selected issues in the field; and assesses standards for professional performance and continuing development with specific reference to the experience.
Assesses and develops a position on a significant public policy question in the student’s field, taking into account scholarly and community perspectives.