Office of Academic Compliance
Academic compliance refers to policies, procedures, and practices in place to ensure that actions regarding degree and certificate programs – from the content of the offerings, to how and where they are delivered – adhere to institutional, state, accreditation, and federal requirements and standards.

What do we expect students to learn and do? 

UVA defines quantitative reasoning as correctly using numbers and symbols; studying measurement, properties, and the relationships of quantities; and formally reasoning within abstract systems of thought to make decisions, judgments, and predictions. From this definition, a committee of faculty set the following learning outcomes.

Student Learning Outcomes   

A graduating fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia will be able to: 

  1. Interpret mathematical models such as formulas, graphs, tables, and schematics, and draw inferences from them. 
  2. Communicate mathematical information symbolically, visually, numerically, and verbally. 
  3. Use arithmetical, algebraic, geometric, and analytic methods to solve problems. 
  4. Estimate and check answers to mathematical problems to determine reasonableness. 
  5. Solve word problems using quantitative techniques and interpret the results. 
  6. Apply mathematical/statistical techniques and logical reasoning to produce predictions, identify optima, and make inferences based on a given set of data or quantitative information. 
  7. Judge the soundness and accuracy of conclusions derived from quantitative information, recognizing that mathematical and statistical methods have limits and discriminating between association and causation.  
  8. Solve multi-step problems. 
  9. Apply statistics to evaluate claims and current literature. 
  10. Demonstrate an understanding of the fundamental issues of statistical inference, including measurement and sampling. 

Targets

For the 2023-2024 assessment of quantitative reasoning, the following standards were established by the committee for graduating fourth-year students: 25% highly competent (scoring 76% or better by correctly answering at least 19 of the 25 items); 75% competent or above (scoring 52% or better by correctly answering at least 13 of the 25 items); and 90% minimally competent or above (scoring 36% or better by correctly answering at least 9 of the 25 items).