教育成果を用いた教養教育の評価活動

NIADによる試行を切り口として

抄録

　 In recent years, National Council for Higher Education has reported an increase in the importance of liberal education in Japanese universities. However, an evaluation by the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE) found an absence of the assessment of outcomes of liberal education. The major purpose of this article is to show how it becomes possible to improve the quality of liberal education by using outcomes assessment.

　 The fundamental difficulty in applying outcomes assessment to liberal education is that there is no consensus amongst faculties on what constitutes liberal education. That is because Japanese liberal education (“Kyouyou” education) is not on a disciplinary basis. In order to resolve this problem, the following prerequisites have to be addressed.

　 Firstly, educational objectives need to be clear and specific with identified operational objectives. The present objectives set for liberal education are too general. This commonly makes it difficult for faculties to understand their meaning and allows for broad interpretation. Consequently there is little agreement on the intended learning outcomes. Educational objectives must be able to provide clear direction for instructional activity.

　 Secondly, the validity of the objectives must be reviewed continuously by indirect assessment. Indirect assessment, analysing students’ views of educational outcomes, is normally used to complement direct assessment which focuses upon objective testing and performance measures. However, in the case of liberal education, while the achievement of objectives is assured by direct assessment, the appropriateness of the objectives themselves must be verified by indirectassessment.

　 Intended outcomes of “Kyouyou” education are similar to the outcomes of generic skills education in European countries and of liberal/general education in the United States. Nevertheless, expectations of the outcomes of liberal education are still very diverse in Japan. Whether the application of consistent outcomes isrealised or not is one of the factors that will determine the future of Japanese higher education.