Overview
Annually, the faculty of each undergraduate major, standalone minor, and required General Education courses examine student achievement of at least one intended learning outcome for their degree program. Through this work, the faculty confirm students are developing the skills and knowledge expected of a graduate in their discipline.
For the academic year 2022-23, this page provides a summary of
- students’ self-perceptions of their knowledge and abilities,
- the faculty’s conclusions about student learning achievement in undergraduate majors, standalone minors,and required General Education courses,
- actions identified to improve student learning, and
- budget implications for proposed improvements to student learning
Links to the intended learning outcomes for each degree are available here. An overview of the annual assessment process is available here. Undergraduate retention and graduation rates are available here.
Please address questions to Laura Martin.
Student Perceptions of their Learning
Across all majors, a large majority of seniors1 reported being highly or moderately proficient at the skills and knowledge expected of a graduate from their major or minor (Figure 1). These results are similar to
those over the past five years (2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022) indicating that disruptions due to remote instruction at the end of spring 2020 and in AY 2020-2021 did not lead to lower perceived levels of learning achievement among students..
These seniors also perceived growth in their knowledge and abilities while at UCM. Just over 4 of 10 reporting seniors (42%) who matriculated at UC Merced as frosh recalled having high or moderate levels of proficiency in skills and knowledge particular to their major at matriculation, and just over 5 of 10 reporting seniors (55%) who matriculated at UC Merced as transfer students recalled having high or moderate levels of proficiency in skills and knowledge particular to their major at matriculation.
Faculty Perceptions of Student Learning
All thirteen undergraduate programs (100%) that were able to draw a conclusion regarding the skills and knowledge demonstrated by students in relation to the intended learning outcomes were pleased with their findings.3 This indicates that students were achieving program benchmarks or were otherwise meeting or exceeding the faculty's performance expectations.
In drawing these conclusions, faculty examined diverse types of student work. These included course embedded quizzes, homeworks, final projects, research papers, experimental lab reports, and capstone projects.
Two additional programs were engaged in assessment in 2022-2023, but are not included in the percentages above as their work was either not structured to determine students' achievement of a specific learning outcome at the time of graduation.
Faculty Actions to Improve Student Learning
While programs were pleased with student performance, all responded to assessment results by identifying actions to support continued improvement in student learning.
Example actions included program-level faculty discussions about strategies for teaching critical analysis, elevating ethics content in courses, additional lectures on writing and communication, adjusting timelines for course assignments, and ensuring key skills are practiced before the capstone.
Budget Implications of Actions to Improve Student Learning
Of those programs identifying actions to improve student learning, most focused on actions that could be accomplished with existing resources. Only 13% identified changes requiring additional staff support.
Faculty Commitment to Examing Student Learning in Majors, Minors, and General Education
UC Merced faculty demonstrated commitment to systematically examining the effectiveness of their degree programs in cultivating intended student learning. In 2022-23,
- 83% of majors,
- and 33% of standalone minors
submitted a report describing their efforts to assess student achievement of intended learning outcomes. No reports were submitted in 2022-23 for the general education program.
Student Achievement: Graduation and Retention Rates
For information on undergraduate retention and graduation rates, visit the Center for Institutional Effectiveness website.
1Data from the 2023 Graduating Senior Survey. Values are averages across all students. For each learning outcome for their major, graduating seniors rated themselves as highly proficient, moderately proficient, barely proficient, or not proficient for two time points: the time they took the survey (Today) and, retrospectively, when they started at UCM (When started at UCM).
2 As represented in the annual learning outcome report submitted by each program, including major, standalone minor, and required General Education courses (n=14). For each report, faculty conclusions regarding student learning outcomes were aligned to a Likert scale of very pleased, pleased, somewhat pleased, somewhat displeased, displeased, very displeased. “Pleased” includes scores of very pleased, pleased, and somewhat pleased.
