6 Aligning Program Outcomes to Degree Level Expectations
The Queen’s Degree Level Expectations (DLEs) are the academic standards that identify the knowledge and skill outcome competencies and reflect progressive levels of intellectual and creative development of Undergraduate and Graduate degrees at Queen’s. They are based upon the DLEs as established by OCAV.
Section 5.1.1. of the self-study template requires that writers demonstrate how Program-level Learning Outcomes match to, or align, with DLEs.
Getting to Know More about the DLEs
The DLEs are organized into two sets:
Undergraduate: differentiating degree level expectations for Bachelors and Bachelor (Honours) degrees.
Graduate: differentiating degree level expectations for Masters and Doctoral degrees
For each set, DLEs are further organized into 6 categories that differ slightly between the Undergraduate and Graduate sets:
| Undergraduate | Graduate |
| Depth & Breadth of Knowledge
Knowledge of Methodologies Application of Knowledge Communication Skills Awareness of Limits of Knowledge Autonomy and Professional Capacity |
Depth & Breadth of Knowledge
Research and Scholarship Level of Application of Knowledge Professional Capacity/Autonomy Level of Communication Skills Awareness of Limits of Knowledge |
Within each category, the degree expectations are explicated and are best taken from the source: Office of the Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) web-page on Degree Level Expectations
Aligning Outcomes to DLEs
Consider how your program learning outcomes connect to the various Degree Level Expectations. The self-study template provides a table for matching outcomes to DLE categories (e.g. Depth & Breadth of Knowledge). The following example reflects the structure of this template to illustrate how one program’s outcomes (an undergraduate Biology program) could be mapped to DLEs:
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