University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Goals

1. The goals of the BALA program are to:

2. Familiarize students with the nature of academic disciplines or sub-disciplines in general, including:
   
   1. The concept of a domain of investigation (such as the sciences) and/or form of expression (the arts),
   2. Discipline methodology(ies), and
   3. The inherent limitations of a single disciplinary approach to complex problems.
3. Develop and refine studentsâ research and investigative skills so that they are better able to:
   
   1. Identify and frame a problem
   2. Discover and/or retrieve relevant information/data
   3. Effectively communicate findings in clear and well-structured prose
4. Instill better reasoning/critical thinking skills, including
   
   1. Analysis and synthesis of information/data
   2. Argument identification, evaluation, and construction

Objectives

1. BALA graduates should be able to:
   1. Explain why two of their disciplinary areas of concentration are applicable to a problem and why the problem is not best approached from a single disciplinary perspective. (Goal 1 and 2a)
   2. Demonstrate competence in discovering and/or retrieving relevant information/data from the above two disciplines and present it clearly and effectively to address the problem identified. (Goal 2 and 3)
   3. Demonstrate effective critical thinking skills (Goal 2 and 3), including:
      
      1. Recognizing what an argument is and is not.
      2. Recognizing two broad species of reasoning–inductive and deductive
      3. Recognizing two general forms of argument evaluation:
         1. Evaluating the truth of the premises
         2. Evaluating the strength of the link between the premises and the conclusion
   4. Identifying the relevance of evidence being offered in support of a conclusion, including being able to recognize the difference between a correlation and a cause
   5. Recognize common fallacies (mistakes) in reasoning.