Critical Discourse Analysis as an Interdisciplinary Research Methodology for Interdisciplinary, Intercultural and an Inter-institutional Assessment Tool for Student-perceived Learning Compared with Instructor-perceived Teaching of Interdisciplinary Online Courses

Abstract

Examining perceived effectiveness of learning objectives and outcomes from a pluralistic view using critical discourse analysis (CDA) will produce analytics from language, discourse practices, and discursive events. Although traditional assessment methods of student learning objectives and outcomes provide feedback regarding learning objectives, results are one-dimensional, often ignore diverse learning styles, lack interdisciplinary synthesis, and rarely consider diverse cultural frameworks of students and instructors. Reasons for assessing student-perceived learning and instructor-perceived teaching of Interdisciplinary Online Courses include (a) the perceptions that are often held as notions of truth, are promoted as truths; (b) student perceived-learning is analogous to a consumer's perceived-value of a service; and most importantly, (c) learning outcome-assessment is the measurement for institutional effectiveness.