Interdisciplinary Program Assessment

Interdisciplinary studies programs and the assessment movement are two parallel educational paradigms, both of which are maturing at a pace that is noticeably deliberate. Idealistic in inception, they are simple in concept, nuanced in practice, and focused on student learning rather than on professorial teaching. Idealism and subtle complexities in interdisciplinary thinking contribute to a belief that assessment is too simplistic to court interdisciplinary studies and has little business here. This paper questions the veracity of that belief and offers some research-based assessment approaches that may sanction an acceptable, if not lusty, marriage of the two paradigms.