Assessment of General Education Learning Outcomes in a Private Higher Education Institution: Basis for a Continuous Quality Improvement Framework

Abstract

General education curricula serve as the foundational architecture of undergraduate formation, yet empirical evidence examining the depth and consistency of their learning outcome attainment in Philippine private higher education remains limited. This study assessed the extent to which students perceived their achievement of General Education Curriculum (GEC) learning outcomes across intellectual, personal and civic, and practical competency domains, analyzed course-specific learning outcome attainment across eight GEC offerings, and generated evidence-based inputs for Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) framework development. A descriptive research design was employed, with data collected from 123 undergraduate students in a private higher education institution in CALABARZON, Philippines, using a validated and reliability-tested self-report questionnaire. Data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Results indicate that students perceived GEC learning outcomes as achieved to a great extent across all three domains, with personal and civic responsibilities yielding the highest composite mean (M = 3.41, SD = 0.52) and intellectual competencies the lowest (M = 3.33, SD = 0.51). At the course level, Ethics registered the highest attainment (M = 3.51, SD = 0.51) while Mathematics in the Modern World recorded the lowest, though still positive, composite mean (M = 3.26, SD = 0.58). A consistent cross-course pattern emerged wherein receptive, reflective, and culturally anchored outcomes were more strongly attained than applied, production-oriented, and analytically demanding competencies — a finding with significant implications for instructional design. These results affirm the overall effectiveness of the Philippine GEC framework while identifying specific pedagogical gaps that warrant targeted intervention. A four-pillar CQI framework encompassing outcomes-disaggregated monitoring, instructional redesign, faculty development, and feedback loop architecture is proposed to guide institutional quality assurance efforts. The study contributes empirical grounding to higher education quality assurance discourse and offers actionable insights for curriculum policy, faculty professional development, and institutional benchmarking in outcomes-based education contexts.