Enhancing Adult Student Learning Through Course Learning Outcome Emphasis and Assessment

The researchers were concerned that course learning outcomes were not always central to the construction of the course syllabi and lesson plans, and that, subsequently, they were not being taughVlearned. A secondary concern was that a course learning outcomes assessment was not in place. They hypothesized that faculty concentrating on course design around learning outcomes and teaching to the learning outcomes of each course would cause a significant increase in student attainment of learning outcome knowledge. A learning outcome assessment survey was distributed to 17 randomly selected undergraduate and graduate courses in two regions of the Extended Campus of Embry-Riddle. Thirteen courses were specifically designed and taught to the learning outcomes, and four were not. The results indicated that there was a significant increase in student learning outcome knowledge attainment when courses were designed around the learning outcomes and the learning outcomes were stressed in all class activities.