Faculty - Assessment of General Education Essential Skills

While GE content is the purview of particular disciplines, all departments must also include the assessment of GE Essential Skills and corresponding Student Learning Outcomes in their departmental review processes. As such, Departments should make sure that any assessment of the disciplinary content is coupled with an assessment of GE Essential Skills. The CSU and CSULB have adopted the LEAP skills identified by the AAC&U as a guide for our GE assessment.

Regardless of the specific GE category, departments should assess their GE courses by identifying which Essential skills listed below are emphasized in that course. Each of these skills is associated with multiple learning outcomes.  These more specific learning outcomes are what departments assess for their program review.  The expectation is that departments assess two to three learning outcomes per essential GE skill by the end of the seven year program review cycle.

Departments should identify the GE Skills taught in their courses on the Department GE Curriculum Map and on the General Education Action Request form. The Annual Assessment report will be used to identify the GE Skills being assessed in any given year within the seven-year cycle.

Effective Fall 2010, The Departmental Model of GE Skills Assessment (PDF) requires that programs writing self-studies assess the Essential GE skills of their courses.  Departments not currently under review must complete the GE student-learning questions in their annual assessment reports due in June.

Please click on each GE Skill listed below for definitions and specific Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). Sample rubrics for each skill are also included.

Written communication is the development and expression of ideas in writing. Written communication involves learning to work in many genres and styles. It can involve working with many different writing technologies, and mixing texts, data, and images. Written communication abilities develop through iterative experiences across the curriculum.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Context of and Purpose for Writing
  • Content Development
  •  Genre and Disciplinary Conventions
  • Sources and Evidence
  • Control of Syntax and Mechanics

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Written Communication Essential Skill (PDF).

Oral communication is a prepared, purposeful presentation designed to increase knowledge, to foster understanding, or to promote change in the listeners' attitudes, values, beliefs, or behaviors.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Organization
  • Language
  • Delivery
  • Supporting Material
  • Central Message
  • Listening

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Oral Communication Essential Skill (PDF).

Critical thinking is a habit of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas, artifacts, and events before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Explanation of issues
  • Evidence
  • Influence of context and assumptions
  • Student's position (perspective, thesis/hypothesis)
  • Conclusions and related outcomes (implications and consequences)

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Critical Thinking Essential Skill (PDF).

Quantitative Literacy (QL) –is a competency and comfort in working with numerical data. Individuals with strong QL skills possess the ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situations. They understand and can create sophisticated arguments supported by quantitative evidence and they can clearly communicate those arguments in a variety of formats (using words, tables, graphs, mathematical equations, etc., as appropriate).

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Interpretation
  • Representation
  • Calculation
  • Application / Analysis
  • Assumptions
  • Communication (Expression of quantitative evidence)

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Quantitative Reasoning Essential Skill (PDF).

The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand. -Adopted from the National Forum on Information Literacy.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

 Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Determine the Extent of Information Needed
  • Access the Needed Information
  • Evaluate Information and its Sources Critically
  • Use Information Effectively to Accomplish a Specific Purpose
  • Access and Use Information Ethically and Legally

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Information Literacy Essential Skill (PDF).

Teamwork is behaviors under the control of individual team members (effort they put into team tasks, their manner of interacting with others on team, and the quantity and quality of contributions they make to team discussions.)

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Contributions to Team Meetings
  • Contributions Outside of Team Meetings
  • Fosters Constructive Team Climate
  • Responds to Conflict 

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Teamwork Essential Skill (PDF).

Inquiry is a systematic process of exploring issues, objects or works through the collection and analysis of evidence that results in informed conclusions or judgments. Analysis is the process of breaking complex topics or issues into parts to gain a better understanding of them.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Topic Selection
  • Existing Knowledge, Research, and/or Views
  • Design Process
  • Analysis
  • Conclusions
  • Limitations and Implications

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Inquiry and Analysis Essential Skill (PDF).

Intercultural Knowledge and Competence is "a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills and characteristics that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts.” (Bennett, J. M. 2008. Transformative training: Designing programs for culture learning. In Contemporary leadership and intercultural competence: Understanding and utilizing cultural diversity to build successful organizations, ed. M. A. Moodian, 95-110. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.)

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle.  You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Cultural self- awareness
  • Knowledge of cultural frameworks
  • Empathy
  • Verbal and nonverbal communication
  • Curiosity
  • Openness

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Intercultural Knowledge Essential Skill (PDF).

Ethical Reasoning is reasoning about right and wrong human conduct. It requires students to be able to assess their own ethical values and the social context of problems, recognize ethical issues in a variety of settings, think about how different ethical perspectives might be applied to ethical dilemmas and consider the ramifications of alternative actions. Students’ ethical self-identity evolves as they practice ethical decision-making skills and learn how to describe and analyze positions on ethical issues.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

 Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Ethical Self-Awareness
  • Understanding Different Ethical Perspectives/Concepts
  • Ethical Issue Recognition
  • Application of Ethical Perspectives/Concepts
  • Evaluation of Different Ethical Perspectives/Concepts

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Ethical Reasoning Essential Skill (PDF).

Creative and Discovery is both the capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative way characterized by a high degree of innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Acquiring Competencies
  • Taking Risks
  • Solving Problems
  • Embracing Contradictions
  • Innovative Thinking
  • Connecting, Synthesizing, Transforming

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Creativity and Discovery Essential Skill (PDF).

Lifelong learning is “all purposeful learning activity, undertaken on an ongoing basis with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competence”. An endeavor of higher education is to prepare students to be this type of learner by developing specific dispositions and skills described in this rubric while in school. (From The European Commission. 2000. Commission staff working paper: A memorandum on lifelong learning. Retrieved September 3, 2003, www.see-educoop.net/education_in/pdf/lifelong-oth-enl-t02.pdf.)

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Curiosity
  • Initiative
  • Independence
  • Transfer
  • Reflection

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Foundation and Skills for Lifelong Learning Essential Skill (PDF).

Interdisciplinary learning is an understanding and a disposition that a student builds across the curriculum and co-curriculum, from making simple connections among ideas and experiences to synthesizing and transferring learning to new, complex situations within and beyond the campus.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Connections to Experience
  • Connections to Discipline
  • Transfer
  • Integrated Communication
  • Reflection and Self-Assessment

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Interdisciplinary Learning Essential Skill (PDF).

Social Responsibility and Civic Engagement encompasses actions wherein individuals participate in activities of personal and public concern that are both individually life enriching and socially beneficial to the community. This essential skill can take many forms, from individual volunteerism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. For students, this could include community-based learning through service-learning classes, community-based research, or service within the community.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Diversity of Communities and Cultures
  • Analysis of Knowledge
  • Civic Identity and Commitment
  • Civic Communication
  • Civic Action and Reflection
  • Civic Contexts / Structures

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Social Responsibility and Civic Engagement Essential Skill (PDF).

Problem solving is the process of designing, evaluating and implementing a strategy to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Define the Problem
  • Identify Strategies
  • Propose Solutions
  • Evaluate Potential Solutions
  • Implement Solutions
  • Evaluate Outcomes

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Problem Solving Essential Skill (PDF).

Global learning is a critical analysis of and an engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (such as natural, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political) and their implications for people’s lives and the earth’s sustainability. Through global learning, students should 1) become informed, open-minded, and responsible people who are attentive to diversity across the spectrum of differences, 2) seek to understand how their actions affect both local and global communities, and 3) address the world’s most pressing and enduring issues collaboratively and equitably.

If you have identified this essential skill as a primary emphasis for your course, you must conduct assessment on 2 – 3 of the learning outcomes listed below within your seven-year program review cycle. You are welcome to assess each learning outcome individually or in clusters.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

  • Global Self-Awareness
  • Perspective Taking
  • Cultural Diversity
  • Personal and Social Responsibility
  • Understanding Global Systems
  • Applying Knowledge to Contemporary Global Contexts

Get the sample rubric for assessing the Problem Solving Essential Skill (PDF).