Elevating Program Theory and Implementation Fidelity in Higher Education: Modeling the Process via an Ethical Reasoning Curriculum

Kristen L. Smith & Sara J. Finney   |    Volume 15 Issue 2  |   

Higher education institutions struggle to demonstrate learning improvement (Banta, Jones, & Black, 2009; Banta & Blaich, 2011; Jankowski, Timmer, Kinzie, & Kuh, 2018). We showcase how student learning outcomes assessment processes can benefit from strong program theory and implementation fidelity data. In our example, faculty articulated the etiology of the distal outcome of acting ethically, which allowed for specification and measurement of the intermediate student learning outcomes. Faculty specified research-informed curriculum and pedagogy to influence the intermediate outcomes and ultimately the distal outcome. By articulating the program theory, faculty were able to assess both the intermediate outcomes for gains and their associated curriculum for implementation fidelity. Faculty could then identify what aspects of programming required changes to evidence learning improvement. Thus, we argue that program theory and implementation fidelity should be prominent components of higher education outcomes assessment processes to address the dearth of empirically supported learning improvement.

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