Know Where You Start, Not Just Where You're Going: Civic Incomes Assessment at Radford University

This paper summarizes the genesis and first deployment of an assessment of student civic knowledge, orientations, and skills at the beginning of their college experience as a way to improve civic engagement interventions and provide improved diagnostic data for student self-reflection and improvement. A survey was adapted and deployed to more than 600 students in a university orientation class in Fall 2024 to determine a baseline of civic knowledge, orientations, and skills. Future iterations of the assessment will provide a longitudinal measure of the value-add of civic interventions through a student's undergraduate experience.