Introduction To The DQP
In higher education’s current approach, students take a
collection of courses--general education plus the major—and their achievement
is recorded in a transcript. The new DQP system would not change this, but
would add to it a new dimension: verification
of successful completion of a set of “competencies,” also often called “proficiencies.”
Some of the competencies in the DQP are ones you would
expect—for example Specialized Knowledge (what the major provides),
Intellectual Skills that include Quantitative Fluency (mathematics and statistics)
and Communications Fluency (writing and speaking). But there are others that
are more complex, such as Broad Integrative Knowledge which calls on students
to show they can work across two or more disciplines. Similarly, Civic Learning
asks that students connect learning in formal areas to their responsibilities
as citizens. Many competencies overlap. Thus, Applied Learning, which asks that
students use their knowledge in complex projects, may already be covered in the
major program.
Most faculty will readily accept the simpler competencies
such as mathematics and communications—not least because these are already
embedded in general education. On the other had, the more sweeping categories
of competency, such as Broad Integrative Knowledge, may seem unreasonably expansive,
asking more than is needed and requiring too much new instructional and
technical activity. Concern about this apparently excessive demand is certainly
reasonable, but careful examination suggests that the new instructional and
bureaucratic commitments will not be onerous and that, considered in the
context of the times, the change represented in the DQP is truly necessary.
The rest of this brief essay will explore the questions of
implementation and importance of the DQP in greater depth.
Why Do We Need Something New?
The answer to these questions is sometimes yes, but far too
often no. We readily agree that many institutions, particularly the more
selective universities, are able to challenge students in ways that, even if
not explicitly coordinated and recorded, normally ensure that students graduate
with the kinds of competencies proposed for the DQP. The same is true for many
professional fields, such as nursing, at all institutions.
While it’s encouraging that many are doing what’s needed,
the demands of the economy, not to mention young peoples’ chances of economic
success and a high quality of life, today require that all students learn at a more intellectually advanced level. And,
since employers are more than ever skeptical that they’re getting what they
need, we will surely help our students by recording and presenting on a
transcript their successes in the expanded dimensions represented by
competencies.
A major part of the problem we face is that our current
course-based transcript system was developed at a time when the typical student
entered college reasonably well-prepared for the rigors ahead, and could be
expected to extract and synthesize many competencies from the curriculum on
their own. It was also a time when businesses’ expectations for incoming
employees were much lower.
By contrast to the era when the exclusively course-based transcript
system was founded, today an ever higher proportion of freshmen enters with
poor academic preparation, weak motivation, and low confidence in their ability
to master college work. In the meantime, employers are becoming much less
willing to provide on the job training. Instead, they expect new staff to have
not just narrow content knowledge but also broad analytical and integrative capabilities
on day one.
Examples Of Change
Let’s consider a few examples of change.
A generation or two ago, the graduate of an engineering or
business program could expect to have a successful career with little more
foundation than he or she would get from the major program (including its
technical underpinnings, notably math). To be complete, the major program would
only need to be supplemented with a few external courses such as composition. This
simple framework isn’t sufficient today. If a current graduate in one of these
fields expects to be successful in a multinational world, she had better be
knowledgeable about foreign cultures, be literate in national and international
economics, be comfortable communicating with people from other backgrounds, and
be able to translate disciplinary knowledge to real life situations.
Similarly, the history or literature graduate of a recent generation
could expect a job in teaching, in various aspects of the media, or in business
areas such as corporate communications. Jobs of this kind usually required nothing
more than the knowledge and skills imparted in the major plus narrow and specialized
information provided on the job. Today, though, such graduates will have very limited
horizons unless they can begin work with the ability to manage and analyze
complex data, to understand basic statistics and economics, and have at least
some ability to follow developments in technology.
The problem of the poorly prepared student raises another
issue in competencies—the question is no longer whether students are exposed to
the various competencies in introductory courses, but at what level they ultimately learn.
A greater proportion of young people entering college today
comes from an all-too typical high school where students respond to factual
information in multiple choice-type questions and are never asked to analyze
problems that aren’t pre-structured for them. They aren’t at all prepared for essay-type
questions and papers. Many such students drop out quickly after entering
college. Many others do advance, but with “C” grades that really represent less
than adequate proficiencies—particularly if they aren’t reinforced later in the
curriculum. Thus, we have technology graduates who communicate poorly and
humanities graduates who can’t cope with technology. Such young people aren’t
well served by their increasingly expensive educations.
What The DQP Isn’t
Given the increased need to provide graduates for knowledge
economy employment, and in light of rising costs as talent-driven colleges and
universities become relatively more expensive vs. the commodity-driven Consumer
Price Index, many outside of higher education see a panacea in Performance
Funding—a Soviet-type strategy in which campuses are given output quotas to
meet or face dire punishment. The same advocates believe that the cost part of
their output quotas can be met through the use of online instruction: one faculty member, thousands of students. If
the unit cost plummet, it has to be a good idea. Finally, to tie the whole
package together, “reform” advocates believe quality can be assured by testing
the product at the end of the line; the same kind of standardized testing that
is failing so miserably in K-12 education.
The DQP, by contrast, follows the insights of business
leaders who have learned over about three decades that testing at the end of
the line simply assures that you’re always in the very expensive process of
fixing earlier and often embedded mistakes—especially challenging if we’re
dealing with graduates rather than physical products. Business has learned that
you have to assure the efficacy of each stage of the process if you expect
quality at the end.
The DQP also follows a second business insight: if you treat people like machines, or in
modern usage just as coefficients in some giant spreadsheet, you’ll get
consistently low efficiency as well as endlessly poor quality. By contrast, if
the producers are respected and engaged in the process, significant and
continuous improvement will result.
The so-called “reform” agenda for higher education, with its
oppressive formulas, ill-considered cost cutting, and ineffective output
testing, will have the same results as the Five Year Plans developed by party
apparatchiki in Moscow. Quantity, yes. Quality, no.
The DQP, by contrast, will strengthen the engagement of
highly qualified people in analyzing and continuously improving each stage of
the educational process. Where much of the “reform” agenda is antithetical to
improved quality, the DQP is integral to it.
Why Is The DQP Better?
In other cases, for example the more challenging “broad
integrated knowledge” category, existing courses may not suffice and may have
to be modified, or in some cases will be supplemented with new courses. Again,
faculty should be able quickly to identify lacunae and initiate needed improvements.
The issue of levels of competence, and of whether they
remain when the student leaves college, may be more difficult. For example, the
History major who takes a math course in the freshman year and passes with a “C,”
may never use math again during college. Such a student is therefore very
unlikely to be proficient in Quantitative Reasoning on graduation. Problems
such as these may require modifications to some courses. For example, History
majors might have to take an upper division course that employs statistical
analysis. Curricular problems of this kind might also provide an excellent
application for online learning, where students could maintain and extend proficiency
in progressively more demanding modules that are inexpensive and flexibly
scheduled.
Implementing the DQP will surely be possible within the current
academic structure at any campus. Much will be familiar, since faculty committees
already deal with many DQP-type issues in disciplines with professional
accreditation. Thus, existing curriculum committees, perhaps supplemented by
temporary task forces, should be able to do the job. Their work will be aided
as needed by an extensive body of literature on competency-based instruction,
including such important topics as assignments and assessment. Over time,
faculty will find ways to strengthen the process. In addition to the normal
papers and presentations at disciplinary conferences, national education-focused
foundations will likely hasten this process improvement by facilitating
meetings and other kinds of exchanges where faculty can share information and
experiences.
What Will The Final Product Look Like? What Will Be Different When We’re
Done?
The main uses of transcripts, of course, are for employers
and other academic institutions.
The former are likely to be thrilled with
competency-enhanced transcripts because it’s exactly what they’ve been asking
for. Indeed, in the unlikely situation that only some subset of institutions
implements the DQP, graduates of these places can expect a significant
advantage in the marketplace.
Experience to date with embedding the DQP in the transfer
process has revealed challenges, but none that are insurmountable. The
AAC&U has a solid base of experience to draw on.
One other final product will be as high in impact as it is
hard to measure: student confidence.
Working with today’s students reveals that, while they don’t know exactly what
they don’t know, many sense that there are some very big gaps in their proficiencies
as they prepare to enter a different world. Teaching and assessing
competencies, and then visibly recording success, should give graduates a much
stronger start on their careers. They’ll be confident and they’ll have good
reason to be.
Conclusion
Rather, the DQP is a recognition that, as we continue to adjust
our practice to deal with different kinds of students and to different employer
expectations, it will be valuable to have greater coherence and commonality
across the entire higher education sector;. In some cases, it will also be
desirable to push expectations higher.
Critics of higher education like to make glib comments such
as, “it’s easier to change the course of history than to change a History course.”
But, after the laughs subside, a thoughtful person realizes that colleges and
universities have consistently shown the right balance in considering new
approaches. They’ve been cautious where they should be—a new curricular
structure every year or two would serve no one well. But they have been responsive
and even bold when appropriate. To illustrate this latter point, consider: 1) the rapid adaptation of new knowledge and
skills in our two-year technology programs; 2) the fact that computer-based
instruction began in higher education and has been implemented thoughtfully there;
and 3) the fact that fields like the life sciences have completely transformed
their course content as knowledge at the nanoscale has become available. To an
outside observer, the structure of a biology major might look very similar to
what it was twenty years ago, but in reality the greater part of the content
has been radically revised.
Finally, remember that the first electronic computer was
built in an American university which also spun off the first computer company.
American colleges and universities then invented a whole new discipline to
serve a rapidly growing industry, and have provided a very high proportion of
the knowledge that has changed a room-sized electronic behemoth with limited
functionality into a sub-fingernail sized chip that can do everything from
rocket science to language translation. Indeed, in many areas of technology,
universities have been streaming out new knowledge faster than business can
absorb it.
So it’s not true that higher education is ossified and
inward looking. The evidence demonstrates we know how to make the right changes
at the right time. The DQP is up next and its time has come.
