Keston H. Fulcher

Defining, Teaching, and Assessing Ethical Reasoning in Action

• As the need for ethical decision-making is growing, colleges and universities can and should teach ethical reasoning skills. • James Madison University defined ethical reasoning as a critical thinking strategy of asking and analyzing Eight Key Questions. • While creating academic and student affairs-based educational programs intended to teach the Eight Key Questions, assessment practitioners at the university worked with ethics content specialists to create a suite of four assessment measures. • One of the four measures developed was the Ethical Reasoning–Writing Rubric and prompt, completed by university students and rated by trained volunteer faculty. • Three years of assessment results show our students are becoming better at reasoning when making ethical decisions; more educational opportunities should continue the growth trend.

Connecting assessment practices with curricula and pedagogy via implementation fidelity data

Abstract Globally, higher education institutions aim to assess and improve students’ learning. However, assessment practices often do not culminate in improved learning. For instance, in the United States, empirical examples of learning improvement in higher education are exceptionally rare. A disconnect between assessment practices and instruction at the classroom level likely contributes to scarce evidence of improvement. In the current study, we provide a didactic example of how outcomes assessment data can be integrated with data concerning the educational intervention students received. This type of information – referred to as implementation fidelity data – allows faculty to more accurately interpret outcomes assessment results, make informed modifications to educational interventions, and link learning improvements back to specific interventions. As more faculty purposefully integrate outcomes assessment data and implementation fidelity data, higher education will better demonstrate its worth.