Initial diagnoses in university courses as an innovation in education—case study from Poland

The need to identify the results to improve their quality is a mandatory practice in education. The scope and range of the indicated diagnoses vary at different stages of education. In elementary and secondary schools, the frequency of such practices is more intense compared to higher education. School diagnoses had to support processes to systematically communicate information to the environment about the status and level of education quality expressed with the results of the exams. Therefore, within school educational cycles, school diagnoses were incubated and developed, including initial diagnoses that create a supplement in the final stage (besides school grading). However, in higher education, such diagnoses need to be introduced and developed. Thus, this article proposes the methodology to perform initial diagnosis in higher education. In addition, a case study of the initial diagnosis performed at the selected Polish university was conducted. The presented example of diagnosis concerns the ecology problem and the awareness of the students under the corporate social responsibility approach. Additionally, diagnoses in mathematical problems are presented to present the continued diagnosis from the lower education stage.