Do learning outcomes set institutions apart?

How different are learning outcomes from college to college? A new report from Campus Labs, whose software helps colleges track student success initiatives, examines some 8,500 learning outcome statements across 73 two- and four-year institutions to determine key areas of focus at the institutional and program/department levels.Institutional outcomes are largely consistent across schools and tend to focus more on higher-order skills such as critical thinking and reasoning, the report found, while department/program outcomes home in on technical skills. At the institution level, technical skills are a higher priority for two-year than for four-year colleges. Department/program level outcomes also place more emphasis on personal development and career-specific knowledge than do institutional outcomes. Institutional outcomes put more weight on factors such as communication, culture and human interaction. "We weren't necessarily saying campuses should or shouldn't be radically different from one another," said Shannon Lacount, assistant vice president of campus adoption at Campus Labs and the co-author of the report, in an interview with Education Dive. "People will fight tooth and nail to get into specific institutions. Our question was: Is there a huge difference between what the learning expectations are at various institutions?"