California State University, Monterey Bay College Portrait

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Students
Find out more about the characteristics of students who attend CSUMB.
Admissions
See how many students applied, accepted, and enrolled at CSUMB. Learn more about students’ high school preparation and test scores.
College Costs & Financial Aid
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College Cost Estimator
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Classes and Campus Life
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Student Experiences
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Majors, Graduation and Next Steps
See which majors are most popular at CSUMB and what recent graduates plan to do after earning their bachelor's degree.
Student Success & Progress
Discover how many students who start at CSUMB finish their bachelor's degree and how long it takes.
Student Learning Outcomes
Figure out what learning gains to expect in critical thinking, writing, and other important subjects at CSUMB.
Public Good

Student Learning at California State University, Monterey Bay

All colleges and universities use multiple approaches to measure student learning. Many of these are specific to particular disciplines, many are coordinated with accrediting agencies, and many are based on outcomes after students have graduated.

CSUMB is an outcomes-based institution and has systems in place that enable development of learning outcomes, assessment of student progress in meeting these outcomes, revision of outcomes when needed, and use of assessment to inform progress in student learning. Outcomes-based education is very well developed in the general education areas, the 13 University Learning Requirements. Each of these has learning outcomes, criteria, and standards used to assess student work. Like the general education program, all of the academic programs have major learning outcomes, which communicate the skills and abilities required of graduating seniors as well as the framework for each degree program, published in a variety of places including internally produces brochures and advising literature. Program faculties collaborate to assess student work for competence in major learning outcomes and use the findings to improve their programs.

Learning Assessment Examples

Pilot Project to Measure Core Learning Outcomes

Colleges and universities participating in the College Portrait measure the typical improvement in students' abilities to think, reason, and write using one of three tests. This is part of a pilot project to better understand and compare what students learn between their freshman and senior years at different colleges and universities.

2010 - 11 Results from the Collegiate Learning Assessment

The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) measures critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving, and written communication using a performance task and an analytic writing task. The scores from the tasks are reported separately below.

Test Administration Process

Test Information

Performance Task Results for First-time, Full-time Students

The increase in learning on the performance task is at or near what would be expected at an institution testing students of similar academic abilities.

Freshman Score: 978
Senior Score: 1071
CLA score range: 400 to no maximum score.

Average EEA scores for tested students
Freshman Score: 956
Senior Score: 980

Analytic Writing Task Results for First-time, Full-time Students

The increase in learning on the analytic writing task is at or near what would be expected at an institution testing students of similar academic abilities.

Freshman Score: 1001
Senior Score: 1132
CLA score range: 400 to no maximum score.