College-level Learning
Through the assessment process, you as the expert determine if the student’s learning is college level.
Determining College-level Learning
There is no one official definition for college-level learning. There are many approaches to defining it.
Defining college-level learning involves many factors, which the student and mentor discuss. College-level learning represents the ability to take knowledge and relate it within a particular context and to other contexts both within and outside a given field.
College-level learning involves:
- acquiring new information
- engaging critical inquiry
- analyzing, synthesizing and integrating the information
- situating the knowledge within a broader context
- demonstrating the ability to apply the learning.
Note: You will be asked to explain how the learning is college-level in your recommendation report. Your rationale for your determinations is very important to help the faculty make the final judgment on awarding credits.
Definitions of College-level Learning
Different researchers have defined college-level learning in their work.
- Global Learning Qualifications Framework (GLQF)
- The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)
- Study on Faculty Perspectives of College-level Learning, Travers (2012)
- Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA, 2008)
- Knowledge Domains
Course Descriptions
Reviewing the descriptions of courses taught at other institutions in similar topics is another way to get an idea of what others have determined to be college-level in a specific field or discipline.
Accessing the College Source, a database to which the college subscribes that provides college catalogs and course descriptions, is an easy way to do this. (Your Empire State College PLA Planner log-in is required.)