Student domain interest and its impact on systems thinking in General Education

There have not been many empirical investigations into the benefits of various specialized general education pathways offered by colleges and universities. This study will investigate systems thinking outcomes related to environment and health fields from programs specifically offered by the University of Utah: LEAP, Block-U, and two Honors College pathways (integrated minor and general Honors pathway). A challenging element to this type of research is that there are potential confounds related to the reasons students ended up in a particular pathway, such as pre-college interests or knowledge, that limit the correlations that can be drawn from the direct influence of the general education courses. Sixty-two freshman and sophomore students from the University of Utah participated in the present study. Each participant completed a survey with various cognitive measures, and student degree audits were analyzed to determine participant educational background and areas of interest. Participants were categorized into three groups based on their major or current course interests: related to the environment/sustainability, related to health, or related to neither field. Participants also completed a cognitive mapping task to evaluate systems thinking. Students with increased domain interest expression are expected to produce more complex maps related to their domain of interest relative to the domains investigated in this study. It was found that the relationships between the diagram measurements were positive across domains, so there may be confounding factors relevant to individuals that are not apparent in the iii current study. However, the next data point could demonstrate differences based on this data that can be attributed to general education at the University of Utah. This study has implications relevant to university curriculum design, particularly in how colleges might better plan out their general education requirements if these specialized pathways are having demonstrable benefits on student outcomes.