3.6.2 Independent Study

Commission Standard: The institution ensures that its graduate instruction and resources foster independent learning, enabling the graduate to contribute to a profession or field of study.

Status: In Compliance

Rationale: Graduate instruction at WKU requires students to analyze, explore, question, consider, and synthesize. Each degree program provides students with competence and experience to contribute to their chosen fields. Along with specific skills, students develop a sense of creative independence. To this end the WKU Graduate Council awards student research grants, and graduate classes foster independent learning by requiring students to evaluate, reconsider, and question. Every graduate degree program requires a comprehensive examination or culminating experience.

Most master's degree programs have both thesis (Plan A) and non-thesis (Plan B) options, and all specialist degrees require completion of a specialist project. Graduate class enrollments are deliberately capped at a lower level than in undergraduate classes so that class size is small enough to allow for substantial interaction between faculty and students, often in seminar format. When proposed new graduate courses are submitted for approval through the curriculum approval process, a clear expectation is that the proposed course's objectives, content, and student expectations will reflect an intent to foster independent learning.

While the university does not systematically collect data on post-graduate achievements of its alumni, some performance data are available in the professional education programs in the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences; graduates of these programs comprise well over half of the institution's master's and specialist degree recipients each year. For example, in the MAE program in Educational Administration graduates have averaged a 98% first-attempt and 100% second-attempt pass rate on the standards-based comprehensive examination. Alumni of the Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Education graduate program have achieved a 100% pass rate on the IECE Specialty Exam developed and administered by the state's Education Professional Standards Board. Graduates of the EdS in School Psychology program have achieved a 100% pass rate on the national School Psychology PRAXIS exam every year since the program was created. Finally, the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences has begun a project to annually survey the school superintendents and principals who employ graduates of our master's and specialist degree programs. While those data are not yet available, the intent is to obtain information to make program modifications wherever necessary to ensure Western graduates have the skills required for success in their respective programs.

As noted in 2.8 , a number of WKU's graduate programs are accredited by organizations or agencies other than SACS, a further indication of the quality of learning experiences provided in the programs.

Both Western's curriculum oversight and academic program review processes require graduate programs to meet appropriate quality standards and foster independent learning. Thorough reviews by the Graduate Council, the University Curriculum Committee, and University Senate ensure Western's programs are designed to produce graduates who can contribute meaningfully to a profession or a field of scholarship.