Assessing students' global awareness

Professional skills are an important part of students' college education, but they are not the simplest to measure and assess. This research shows the steps that have been taken to assess students' global awareness, who are in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The research focuses on creating assessment tools and rubrics that will evaluate a student's stage of competency (i.e., acclimation, competency and proficiency) in the three different components (i.e., interest, knowledge and strategic processing) based on the Model of Domain Learning (MDL) assessment framework. We first introduce global awareness competencies and learning outcomes expected from STEM students, with a special emphasis on measuring students' interest levels. After defining specific global awareness knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) in each learning outcome area, we define assessment items to measure them. Then, how these assessment items can be mapped into a standard assessment framework based on the MDL is discussed. In addition, we present a review of existing rubrics or assessments tools from the literature to measure global awareness along with a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we present our preliminary findings about students' global awareness development throughout their education.

Introduction

The purpose of the research is to be able to assess students' global awareness knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) before entering the work force. Students in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines are working in multicultural environments in which being able to assess students' global awareness KSA and improving upon it, will allow students to be confident working in these environments. The goal is to be able to measure students' global awareness KSA and be able to find ways to improve their global awareness. The faculty advisors are Dr. Sadan Kulturel-Konak and Dr. Abdullah Konak. Somer Chipperfield, an undergraduate research student, is working on assessing global awareness of students in STEM disciplines as a part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported grant project (# DUE-1141001NSF) titled as “A Modular Assessment Framework for Professional Skills Using a Model of Domain Learning Approach.”