Principal Supervisor(s): Colleges of CUHK, Office of University General Education, Baldwin Cheng Research Centre for General Education
In collaboration with the constituent Colleges of CUHK, Office of University General Education (OUGE) and Baldwin Cheng Research Centre for General Education (BCRCGE) have launched a research project named “Assessment of the Effectiveness of the General Education Programme in CUHK” since fall 2012. Two surveys, namely the Entry Survey using the Entry Class Questionnaire (ECQ) and the GE Graduate Survey, have been developed to measure the achievement of programme learning outcomes perceived by the students:
Entry Survey using the Entry Class Questionnaire
The Entry Survey, using the ECQ, is administrated in collaboration with the Centre for Learning Enhancement and Research (CLEAR), the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) and the Colleges at the start of each academic year. The questionnaire consists of two parts. Part I is about personal particulars, expectations of and transitions to university life, and self-assessment of capabilities. Part II collects data about students’ learning habits, expectations of GE in CUHK and attitudes of learning a third language. The annual findings of the ECQ are generally positive and remain highly consistent across years.
GE Graduate Survey
The GE Graduate Survey, conducting in the last year of students’ university study, aims at collecting their opinions after they nearly complete the whole GE curriculum in CUHK. The survey had undergone two times of major refinements. The initial Graduate Survey in 2012 comprised all same items to the part II of the ECQ to gauge the potential change of students in various aspects after their four-year study. For a better administration of different surveys in the university, a more GE-centred Graduate Survey had been utilized since 2015. Questions about self-assessment of capabilities and learning habits from the previous survey were eliminated and were left to the more University-wide Undergraduate Exit Survey (UEQ) set up by the CLEAR, the OSA, the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid (OAFA) and the OUGE. The streamlined GE Graduate Survey mainly captured students’ overall experiences of studying GE courses, attitudes towards GE and evaluation of the College GE. For a more precise analysis, the survey is further enhanced in 2021 to seek students’ views on three GE programmes separately, i.e. the GE Foundation, the Four-Areas and College GE.
Both the ECQ and the GE Graduate Survey would help the OUGE and the Colleges to understand students’ experiences in studying GE courses and thus to improve the future design of the GE curriculum.