General Education Task Force

October 27, 2005

Susan Keefe, Paul Gates, Tim Harris, Tina Hogan, and Mike Mayfield

FOCUS GROUP RESEARCH

PRELIMINARY REPORT

            The General Education Task Force was appointed by the Provost in January 2005 to investigate principles and models of general education at Appalachian State University.  In order to help understand attitudes toward the current core curriculum and the perceived need for revision among faculty and students, focus group research was undertaken by the Task Force.  Other purposes of the research were to increase the visibility of the work of the Task Force and to provide for direct communication between Task Force members and members of the campus community.  This preliminary report presents initial impressions following debriefing sessions held by the Task Force.  A final report will follow the transcription of the focus group tapes.

            The research design provided for 10 focus groups to be conducted during the last two weeks in September.  Task Force members were trained in focus group research methods during the first two weeks in September.  Two Task Force members were assigned to each focus group, one as Moderator and one as Note Taker.  The Office of Institutional Research, Assessment & Planning assisted in the focus group training as well as sampling.  Focus groups were audio taped and tapes will ultimately be transcribed.

            The research was designed to include students and instructors involved in classroom delivery of general education at ASU.  Of the 10 focus groups, three were designed for students, two for non-tenure track faculty (both fulltime and part-time), and five for tenure-track faculty.  Letters of invitation (hard copy and e-mail) were issued by the Provost during the first week in September.  Telephone calls and e-mail follow-ups were used to increase the initial response.  Students were provided with pizza at the focus groups as an additional incentive to participate.  Confidentiality was promised to participants during the focus group meetings and in the dissemination of findings.

            Participants were asked four questions to provoke discussion:

1.      What kinds of learning outcomes or goals should a good general education curriculum have?

2.      What is your impression of how these learning outcomes are accomplished with our university’s current general education curriculum?

3.      What suggestions do you have for improving our university’s general education curriculum?

4.      We are currently considering the creation of a signature general education curriculum.  What could make our university’s general education curriculum unique or outstanding?

            Focus group sessions were held in Plemmons Student Union.  The 10 focus groups included a total sample of 78 students and faculty.

Sampling

            Students.  Originally, we attempted to recruit a random sample of students to participate in the focus groups.  Fifty students were invited to participate in one of three focus groups.  To be eligible to participate, students had to be enrolled full time for the Fall 2005 semester, completed 60 semester hours at Appalachian, and entered Appalachian as a new freshmen.  After several attempts to contact these students through a letter, repeated e-mails, and a phone call, we only had a 6% response rate.  Therefore, we resorted to a convenience sample of students who General Education Task Force members contacted through classes and co-curricular activities.

            Of the 15 students who participated in focus groups, 53% were male.  Forty percent were juniors and 60% were seniors.  Thirteen were originally admitted to Appalachian as freshmen.  All student participants were Caucasian.  Fifteen different majors were represented, with one student with a declared second major.  Overall this was a high achieving group of students with an average SAT score of 1205 (SD = 136) and average Appalachian GPA of 3.36 (SD = 0.40).

            Tenure-track faculty.  For the five tenure-track faculty focus groups, two faculty members on the tenure track were selected from each department that had full-time faculty who taught undergraduates.  The faculty members were randomly selected from all other tenure-track faculty members in each of the 32 departments for the 2004-2005 academic year.  Then, we confirmed that those selected were teaching at Appalachian during the current semester.  Of the 64 tenure-track faculty contacted, 45 participated for a response rate of 70%.  Twenty-nine academic departments and all 5 colleges were represented.  Fifty-eight percent of participants were male and 96% were Caucasian.  Sixty-four percent had tenure as of Fall 2004.  The distribution by department was as follows:

            Non-tenure-track faculty.  The non-tenure track faculty sample was randomly selected from a list of all non-tenure track faculty members who taught in the previous year and were scheduled to teach at least one course in the main part of the CORE during the Fall 2005 semester.  This included both full-time and part-time, non-tenure track faculty members.

Of the 31 non-tenure track faculty invited to participate in the focus groups, 18 attended for a response rate of 58%.  The majority of participants were from Arts and Sciences (72%) and the rest were from Fine and Applied Arts.  Fifty percent were female and all were Caucasian.  Fifty percent were part-time in the 2004-2005 academic year.  The academic departments that were represented by non-tenure track faculty are as follows:

Findings

In general, participants were interested in the question of what constitutes a good general education and whether or not it is being achieved in our curriculum.  Students and non-tenure track faculty had the greatest difficulty in conceptualizing the goals of general education.  Non-tenure track faculty more often were directed toward their discipline at the expense of general education.

  Students said they yearn for the culture of an intellectual community involving connectedness with others, immersion in subjects, and discussion of ideas outside the classroom.  There was the feeling that this is incompletely captured on our campus.  Students who enter with AP credit, for example, often miss the kinds of connectedness currently fostered by our learning communities.

Faculty saw the option of offering one or more small seminar-size classes to freshmen as one means of creating a sense of community early on in the student’s life at ASU.

There was a strong interest among students and faculty in fostering more study of international issues and the global system.  Foreign languages were enthusiastically endorsed by some faculty while others were concerned about the impact of their expansion on resources.  There was also a strong interest among students and faculty in more interdisciplinary work.  Examples of potential cross-disciplinary courses mentioned included themes of global change, genetic medicine/stem cell issues, and sustainable development.  There was an interest in making more connections across disciplines and across campus.

There was an interest in encouraging the study of diversity in all its forms.  One faculty member mentioned the need to challenge students, to take them out of their comfort zone.  Students often felt general education should demonstrate relevance to current issues and current social problems.

Faculty universally felt the need for more emphasis in general education on practical communication skills, such as writing and speaking.  They also felt that there should be more emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving abilities.

There was considerable interest in service learning and internship opportunities.  This was evident in a related concern regarding civic engagement.  Students and faculty also sometimes mentioned the need for connecting early on with careers and post-undergraduate professional life.  Some students and faculty felt there was a need for more practical life skills, such as personal finance.

A few faculty members felt strongly that physical education should remain part of the core curriculum.  One tied this to health and wellness and the extent to which our student body is increasingly out of shape.

Using our location in the Appalachian Mountains was often mentioned as a theme that might useful in developing a signature general education program.  Students and faculty both see a connection to place as part of the Appalachian State University experience.

Faculty and students typically had difficulty interpreting the current core curriculum check sheet.  In general, they felt the check sheet was poorly designed and difficult to understand.  Both faculty and students were frustrated with the Designators.  While faculty might appreciate the intent of the Designators, there was criticism of this method of ensuring competencies in the core curriculum.  There was also confusion about the process of obtaining a Designator for a class.

Many concerns were raised about the implementation of the core curriculum.  Both students and faculty felt there were problems in the area of advising.  One common perception was that some advisors and some majors often push students into a limited number of courses.  Often, non-tenure track faculty members were perceived as unaware of the core curriculum and unable to help students with choices.  There was the feeling that the general education curriculum should provide alternatives and flexibility, and that students should be able to make choices.

There were questions regarding assessment of general education.  In general, this was a poorly understood area, but many felt that general education should be better monitored and evaluated regularly.

There was the feeling that the reward system needs to be better connected to the delivery of general education.  Faculty often felt that teaching the core curriculum is not the central value of our faculty or our departments.  It was remarked that senior faculty often feel being forced to teach freshmen is a form of punishment.  There was also interest expressed in continuing faculty development.  Many newer faculty members did not really understand the general education goals of the university, and the lack of transparency of the core curriculum check sheet contributed to this lack of understanding.

Some concern was expressed about the comprehensive articulation agreement with community colleges and the need to consider the special status of transfer students.

Negative comments about faculty and courses were few.  For some, the current core curriculum is not at all bad.  Yet, there was the general feeling that our current core curriculum is not providing the best foundation for our students.  In other words, change is necessary.  In many cases, there might already be classes on the books that might be easily integrated into a new general education curriculum.

There seemed to be openness to the consideration of a new model of general education on campus.  A “tree” model was mentioned by some, in which students might be given the choice of several tracks to choose from which determine later choices in classes.  There was also the explicit recommendation by some that any new model be tied to a system of rewards and resources.  There was concern, for example, that “the matrix” is driving decisions and disciplines (rather than interdisciplinarity) on campus.  This must be addressed with regard to any new general education model that might be adopted.