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General Studies Program Comprehensive Assessment Report Academic Year 2003-2004: A "Snapshot" of the General Studies Program 

In the course of discussing an assessment plan for the General Studies Program, the question arose as to when students take which courses in the general Studies program. In other words, what is the typical path that a UNK student takes through General Studies?

All of the Fall 2003 General Studies courses were analyzed for their enrollment numbers by class rank of the students listed in their rosters. The complete profile is listed in Appendix F. One way to assess which courses are taken when is to look at the top ten courses taken by first year students in terms of raw numbers. This is presented in the next Table.

Top Ten Frosh GS Courses by Raw Number of Students

ENG 101 688
PE160 330
PSY 203 300
SPCH 100 255
BIOL 103 252
SOC 100 222
ECON 100 158
ART 100 149
CHEM 160   145
HIST 251 141

Another way to assess these courses is by the average class rank of students in these courses. The following table lists the top ten courses with the lowest average class rank. (This analysis controls for the huge numbers that some classes naturally have, ignoring large number of upper-class students.

Top Ten Frosh GS Courses by Average Class Rank

GERM 470-80   1.00
ENG 101 1.10
MATH 115 1.38
THEA 120 1.44
CHEM 150   1.45
CHEM 145 1.47
PSY 203 1.48
CHEM 160 1.48
FCSC 108 1.50
BIOL 107 1.50

It is also revealing to see which courses have the largest numbers of juniors and seniors.

Top Ten Upper Class GS Courses by Raw Number of Students

PE 110 211
ENG 251 96
BIOL 103 93
PE 160 88
ECON 100   70
FCSC 351 58
HIST 250 57
PSY 230 57
ENG 254 56
PSCI 100 54

And similarly for upper class student,

Top Ten Upper Class GS Courses by Average Class Rank

GERM 375 3.50
BIOL 315 3.50
FREN 355 3.25
GERM 470-01   3.00
PHYS 206 3.00
ENG 254 2.84
SPAN 201 2.81
GERM 200 2.80
PE 110 2.79
GERM 304 2.87