Department Learning Outcomes
Dartmouth College holds accreditation from the New England Commission of Higher Education (formerly the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc.).
As part of the periodical re-accreditation process, the College has extended invitations to all departments and programs offering majors to refine their learning outcome metrics to measure, aimed at measuring educational effectiveness. In alignment with this initiative, the Government Department received an invitation to propose measurements, sourced from students, evaluating the outcomes of their education.
The learning outcomes for the Government Department are delineated below:
Learning Outcome 1: Quantitative Reasoning
Students must demonstrate an understanding of quantitative methods and casual inference used in the study of politics including key statistical concepts such as measures of central tendency (e.g., means, medians and modes), distributions and variance, measures of uncertainty (e.g., standard errors, p-values and confidence intervals) and statistical tests including difference of means tests and multivariate regression.
Learning Outcome 2: Conceptual Understanding and Substantive Knowledge
Students are required to demonstrate an understanding of key theoretical and/or normative concepts and approaches used by political scientists and political theorists and substantive knowledge and understanding of important historical and contemporary political events, institutions, and individuals (including key thinkers, scholars, and political figures).
Learning Outcome 3: Proficiency in Analytical Writing
Students must showcase the ability to gather and organize empirical evidence and employ logical reasoning to support an original argument and communicate that argument effectively in writing.