The question of whether students change in broad abilities indicative of human potential for cognitive-development, learning styles, and other generic abilities was studied at Alverno College. An additional study objective was to determine whether such change can be attributed to performance in a performance-based curriculum, rather than age,…

A series of studies that investigated the validity of abilities learned in college for later career and professional work are summarized. After describing the rationale for validating outcome-centered higher education curricula, the following types of measures for program evaluation and outcome validation are discussed: performance measures of…