Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education
Liberal Arts Outcomes Assessment Instruments

The following is a list of the assessment instruments used in the Wabash National Study, each listed under the outcome it examines.

Outcome: Effective Reasoning and Problem Solving
Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) Critical Thinking Test
The CAAP Critical Thinking Test is a 32-item, 40-minute instrument that measures students' skills in clarifying, analyzing, evaluating, and extending arguments. The Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency is a national, standardized assessment program based on professional research and development by ACT. 

Outcome: Inclination to Inquire and Lifelong Learning
Need for Cognition Scale
Cacioppo and Petty (1982) developed a Need for Cognition Scale that measures how much people enjoy engaging in effortful cognitive activities. Individuals who rank high in "need for cognition" enjoy thinking and do it more often than individuals who rank low in this area and who only engage in careful thought when they have to. The scale has 18 items arranged in a Likert-scale fashion.

Cacioppo, J.T., & Petty, R.E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116–131.

Outcome: Integration of Learning
The integration of learning outcome is not measured in the quantitative assessments of the Wabash National Study but is assessed in the in-depth student interviews.

Outcome: Intercultural Effectiveness
Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale – Short Form (M-GUDS-S)
The M-GUDS-S is a 15-item multiple choice questionnaire that measures student attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors regarding diversity. Developed by Marie L. Miville, this instrument uses a 6-point Likert-type scale to assess student awareness and acceptance of both similarities and differences among people. A longer, 45-item version of this scale is also available.

For more information about the M-GUDS see:

Miville, M. L., Gelso, C. J., Pannu, R., Liu, W., Touradji, P., Holloway, P., & Fuertes, J. (1999). Appreciating similarities and valuing differences: The Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46, 291–307.

Fuertes, J. N., Miville, M. L., Mohr, J. J., Sedlacek, W. E., & Gretchen, D. (2000). Factor structure and short form of the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 33, 157–169.

Outcome: Leadership
Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS-R2)
Developed by Tyree and designed as a tool for use in assessing college students’ participation in a process of socially responsible leadership, this 68-item instrument (version II) measures the eight C’s of the Social Change Model (SCM) for leadership development: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and citizenship. These seven fall around one central value, change. 

Tyree, T. M. (1998). Designing an instrument to measure socially responsible leadership using the social change model of leadership development. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.

Outcome: Moral Reasoning
Defining Issues Test (DIT-2)
The Defining Issues Test (DIT-2) is an updated version of the DIT, a well-validated and widely-used measure of moral judgment. It consists of five social problems to which participants respond. Although derived from Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, it is based on a different set of assumptions about how development unfolds. More recently, Rest and his colleagues (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999) have used schema theory to interpret DIT-2 scores.

Rest, J. R., Narvaez, D., Bebeau, M. J., Thoma, S. J. (1999). Postconventional moral thinking: A Neo-Kohlbergian approach. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

For more information about the DIT-2 see:

The Center for the Study of Ethical Development at the University of Minnesota

Outcome: Well-being
Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being
Designed to measure six dimensions of psychological well-being, this instrument has items for each of the following scales: self-acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, personal growth, purpose in life, and autonomy. The Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education uses the mid-size version (54 items) of the Ryff.

For more information about the Ryff see:

Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069–1081.