Perceptions of Bachelor-Degree Graduates Regarding General Education Program Quality

• Main Author: Bittinger, Sara-Beth
• Language: EN
• Published: Frostburg State University 2017
• Subjects: Educational evaluation|Educational leadership|Higher education
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10603311

<p> This study was directed by a modified Delphi-methodology design to gain perspective of the perceptions of alumni regarding the value and applicability of the general education program. The expert-panel participants were 14 alumni of Frostburg State University from various majors, representative of all three colleges, who graduated between 2006 and 2011. This study sought to identify alumni perceptions of general education programming through three rounds of a survey administration and to use alumni responses to review the future development of the general education program. Overall, respondents agreed that their experiences at Frostburg moderately prepared them for real-world demands. Specifically, the average importance rankings of the various attributes related to their bachelor&rsquo;s degrees identified by the panel were as follows: overall life preparation, preparation to be well-rounded and educated, career and professional preparation, preparation for the major, and aided in skill development. </p><p> Alumni ranked the importance of skills/attributes that prepared them for their profession as follows: communication, internship, leadership, relating to others, understanding different perspectives, legal and ethical skills, becoming well-rounded, and open-mindedness. Attributes identified as important to alumni when explaining their general education course selections were perceived usefulness of the course in the future, the subject of the course, the convenience of when the course was offered (time and day), satisfying the General Education Program requirement, advisor guidance, the professor teaching the course, and course rigor. </p><p> English composition and social and behavioral sciences ranked highest in importance, followed by mathematics, in all three rounds of the survey. Arts, humanities, and biological and physical sciences exhibited lower importance, measured by the mean rank. Regarding course subjects, English had the highest ranking followed by psychology, sociology, probability, and statistics.</p><p>