Student Learning and Development in the Context of Dissertation Research

At the University of Kansas, the Bioengineering Graduate Program has undertaken a process to develop objectives, outcomes, and measures of student learning and development in the dissertation research of PhD students.Two measures of student learning, the graduate learner outcomes dissertation rubric and peer-reviewed publication of graduates, are presented in this paper.It was found that assessing peer-reviewed publications, particularly in relationship to the year of graduation, yields information on the volume and success of a student's research productivity.It may, however, be influenced by other factors such as laboratory size.