Appropriate to the level of the degree offered

Being appropriate to the level of the degree is a characteristic required in the Higher Learning Commission’s (NAU’s regional accreditor) core criterion “3.A.1.: Courses and programs are current and require levels of performance by students appropriate to the degree or certificate awarded.”

In order to define “levels of performance appropriate to the degree” some faculty groups have turned to the Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP), which explicitly articulates differentiated learning outcomes for Associate’s, Bachelor’s, and Master’s degrees. A few sections that seemed to be most relevant to NAU’s degree foci are copied and pasted from the Degree Qualifications Profile below. The PDF of the Degree Qualifications Profile.

What the following examples explore is the different level of learning between a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree. Of course, the specific content knowledge of the discipline would need to be included in the outcomes, as well as the specific purpose of learning developed by faculty in the degree program.

	Bachelor's Degree	Master's Degree
Specialized Learning	•Defines and explains the structure, styles and practices of the field of study using its tools, technologies, methods and specialized terms. •Addresses a familiar but complex problem in the field of study by assembling, arranging and reformulating ideas, concepts, designs and techniques. •Frames, clarifies and evaluates a complex challenge in the field of study and one other field, using theories, tools, methods and scholarship from those fields to produce independently or collaboratively an investigative, creative or practical work illuminating that challenge. •Constructs a summative project, paper, performance or application that draws on current research, scholarship and techniques in the field of study.	•Elucidates the major theories, research methods and approaches to inquiry and schools of practice in the field of study, articulates their sources, and illustrates both their applications and their relationships to allied fields of study. •Assesses the contributions of major figures and organizations in the field of study, describes its major methodologies and practices, and illustrates them through projects, papers, exhibits or performances. •Articulates significant challenges involved in practicing the field of study, elucidates its leading edges, and explores the current limits of theory, knowledge and practice through a project that lies outside conventional boundaries.
Analytical Inquiry	•Differentiates and evaluates theories and approaches to selected complex problems within the chosen field of study and at least one other field.	•Disaggregates, reformulates and adapts principal ideas, techniques or methods at the forefront of the field of study in carrying out an essay or project.
Communication Fluency	•Constructs sustained, coherent arguments, narratives or explications of issues, problems or technical issues and processes, in writing and at least one other medium, to general and specific audiences. •Conducts an inquiry relying on non-English-language sources concerning information, conditions, technologies or practices in the field of study. •Negotiates with one or more collaborators to advance an oral argument or articulate an approach to resolving a social, personal or ethical dilemma.	•Creates sustained, coherent arguments or explanations summarizing his or her work or that of collaborators in two or more media or languages for both general and specialized audiences.
Applied Learning	•Prepares and presents a project, paper, exhibit, performance or other appropriate demonstration linking knowledge or skills acquired in work, community or research activities with knowledge acquired in one or more fields of study, explains how those elements are structured, and employs appropriate citations to demonstrate the relationship of the product to literature in the field. •Negotiates a strategy for group research or performance, documents the strategy so that others may understand it, implements the strategy, and communicates the results. •Writes a design, review or illustrative application for an analysis or case study in a scientific, technical, economic, business, health, education or communications context. •Completes a substantial project that evaluates a significant question in the student's field of study, including an analytic narrative of the effects of learning outside the classroom on the research or practical skills employed in executing the project.	•Creates a project, paper, exhibit, performance or other appropriate demonstration reflecting the integration of knowledge acquired in practicum, work, community or research activities with knowledge and skills gleaned from at least two fields of study in different segments of the curriculum and articulates the ways the two sources of knowledge influenced the result. •Designs and implements a project or performance in an out-of-class setting that requires the application of advanced knowledge gained in the field of study to a practical challenge, articulates in writing or another medium the insights gained from this experience, and assesses (with appropriate citations) approaches, scholarly debates or standards for professional performance applicable to the challenge.