Repeatedly, humanists, particularly within general studies programs, observe that current assessment does not capture the liberal learning that they believe they are imparting to students. A rich supplement to current statistical assessment practices would be the construction of narrative cases, or “briefs,” on the development and acquisition of liberal learning as humanists conceive of it. ACTC’s Liberal Arts Institute, working in parallel to a similar project at the Association for General and Liberal Studies, has conducted a project and issued a first volume of Qualitative Narrative Assessment: Core Texts Programs in Review. This ground-breaking study has resulted in humanistic, institutional narrative assessment centered on core texts and evidence of student liberal learning derived from those texts.
ACTC’s Liberal Arts Institute proudly makes available the Review to members of the core text, liberal arts community in the hope that the study can help institutions to characterize uniquely their own programs and, more importantly, articulate and give voice to the humanists, social scientists and scientists who support, develop, and offer to students the opportunity in higher education to study and learn from the works of the world’s great intellectual, moral and artistic traditions: ACTC’s Qualitative Narrative Assessment: Core Texts Programs in Review, vol. 1 Qualitative Narrative Assessment: Core Text Programs in Review, vol. 2
This project was under development for three years. Ten institutions drawn from ACTC’s Liberal Arts Institute and its general Institutional Membership originally participated in various stages of the project. For more on the early development of the project, see this link: ACTC AGLS Project for a Humanistic Narrative Approach to Assessment.