Communication Major Learning Outcomes

• Communication Disciplinary Knowledge: Knowledge and comprehension of the fundamental concepts and processes relevant to the Communication discipline and its professional subfields

  Upon completion of a Bachelor of Science in Communication, students will be able to demonstrate Communication disciplinary knowledge by:

  • Demonstrating an understanding of basic human and mediated communication process models
  • Demonstrating the ability to historically frame the development and evolution of mass media technology
  • Demonstrating a baseline understanding of current issues and controversies in the communication field
  • Demonstrating baseline fluency in commonplace disciplinary vocabulary
  • Demonstrating a basic understanding of the prevailing communication modalities
  • Understanding key practices of the professional subfields

  Cross Reference: National Communication Association Learning Outcome #1: Describe the Communication discipline and its central questions

• Critical Thinking: rhetorical critical inquiry, analysis and evaluation of communication events, texts and impacts as the foundation of understanding social, political and cultural communication effects

  Upon completion of a Bachelor of Science in Communication, students will be able to demonstrate critical thinking by:

  • Identifying social, political and cultural meanings embedded in messages
  • Articulating characteristics of mediated and non-mediated messages
  • Recognizing the social, political, cultural and global influence of messages
  • Analyzing communication events using rhetorical methods

  Cross Reference: National Communication Association Learning Outcome #3: Engage in Communication Inquiry; Learning Outcome #5: Critically Analyze Messages.

• Ethical Reasoning: Recognition of ethical issues relevant to Communication and the impact of communication events on individuals, society and culture

  Upon completion of a Bachelor of Science in Communication, students will be able to demonstrate ethical reasoning by:

  • Demonstrating an understanding of the role of ethics in shaping communication events in interpersonal, organizational, social, political, and cultural contexts and frameworks
  • Identifying and explaining formalized and informal professional ethical principles within professional subfields and emerging digital environments
  • Evaluate the ethical elements of a communication event

  Cross Reference: National Communication Association Learning Outcome #7: Apply ethical communication principles and practices

• Communication – identify the most appropriate means to construct and execute communication events to audiences using multiple modalities

  Upon completion of a Bachelor of Science in Communication, students will be able to demonstrate communicative agency by:

  • Locating and using information relevant to communicative event goals, audiences and contexts
  • Creating, selecting, adapting and presenting messages in multiple distribution modalities to accomplish communicative event goals
  • Acknowledging and understanding differences in communication constructs, interpretation, effects and consequences

  Cross Reference: National Communication Association Learning Outcome #6: Demonstrate the ability to accomplish communicative goals; Learning Outcome #9: Influence public discourse; Learning Outcome #8: Utilize communication to embrace difference.

• Creativity – the design, construction and building of communication artifacts for distribution across multiple modalities

  Upon completion of a Bachelor of Science in Communication, students will be able to demonstrate communicative creativity by:

  • Designing strategic and effective messages relevant to communicative event goals, audiences and contexts
  • Constructing and executing communication events across multiple distribution modalities to accomplish communicative event goals, audiences and contexts

  Cross Reference: National Communication Association Learning Outcome #4: Create messages appropriate to the audience, purpose, and context

• Quantitative Literacy: Utilize theory, quantitative tools and numerical data to investigate communication question

  Upon completion of a Bachelor of Science in Communication, students will be able to demonstrate research literacy by:

  • Explaining synthesizing and applying communication theory in the design and execution of research projects
  • Constructing and executing research projects to investigate practical and scholarly questions within diverse communication fields
  • Analyzing and interpreting quantitative results from research projects

  Cross Reference: National Communication Association Learning Outcome #2: Employ Communication theories, perspectives, principles, and concepts.