Assessing Student Learning Outcomes in United States Government Courses

Abstract

AbstractThis study employs the Solomon Four-Group Design to measure student knowledge of the United States government and student knowledge of current events at the beginning of a U.S. government course and at the end. In both areas, knowledge improves significantly. Regarding knowledge of the U.S. government, both males and females improve at similar rates, those with higher and lower GPAs improve at similar rates, and political science majors improve at similar rates to non-majors. Regarding current events, males and females improve at similar rates. However, those with higher GPAs and political science majors improve more than others.