Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa University of Chicago Press, 2011 This book has much to say that is perceptive about today's undergraduate higher education in the United States. It will be valuable to review the authors' insights. At the same time, it will be as instructive to note the book's weaknesses, and especially what is omitted from the discussion. It is a discussion that is truncated intellectually by the authors' close adherence to the selective awareness that so greatly typifies the mindscape of the contemporary American "establishment" in academia and throughout the commanding heights of American society. That mindscape allows a recognition of many things, but not of others. The authors are both faculty members at major American universities. Richard Arum is a sociology professor at New York University with a tie to the university's school of education. He is the author of several books on education and director of the Education Research Program sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. His co-author, Josipa Roksa, is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. That the book is published by the University of Chicago Press attests to its presumptive merit. Academically Adrift furnishes an example of something that has long been common in social science writing: a rather thin empirical study serving as the work's own contribution, combined with considerable additional material coming out of the literature on whatever subject is being explored. The function of the authors' own research is thus often to serve more or less as scientistic windowdressing. The reason we say the empiricism for this book is "thin" is that the "longitudinal data of 2,322 students," while seemingly ample, involves students spread over "a diverse range of campuses," including "liberal arts colleges and large research institutions, as well as a number of historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions," all "dispersed nationally across all four regions of the country." This must necessarily mean that the "sample" from any given institution or program was quite small. We are told that the authors didn't concern themselves with the appropriateness of each sample, but left the recruitment and retention of the sample's students to each of the respective institutions. The authors acknowledge that the study included fewer men than women, and more good students than those of "lower scholastic ability." So far as this book is concerned, however, the thinness doesn't particularly hurt the content, since so much of what is said doesn't especially depend upon anything unique found by the authors' own research. A brief summary is provided when the authors say that "we will highlight four core 'important lessons' from our research." These are that the institutions and students are "academically adrift" (which is the basis for the book's title), that students gain surprisingly little from their college experience, that there is "persistent and growing inequality" in the students' learning, and that "there is notable variation both within and across institutions" so far as "measurable differences in students' educational experiences" is concerned. Following the lead of former president Derek Bok of Harvard and of the Council for Aid to Education, the authors' ideal for higher education is that it will enhance students' "capacity for critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing." These are the three ingredients measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), which the authors value most among the various assessment tools. The CLA results, they say, show that "growing numbers of students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for a large proportion of them the gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication are either exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent. …

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay For It

Arthur Chickering is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at Memphis State University. On leave from the Directorship of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Memphis State, he is Visiting Professor at George Mason University. Zelda Gamson is a sociologist who holds appointments at the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan.

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: Faculty Inventory. Institutional Inventory.

The authors document the collective thinking and dialogue among participants in a year-long dialogue sponsored by the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good, hosted at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

Higher Education for the Public Good: Emerging Voices from a National Movement

The provision of grant aid is important to students’ postsecondary opportunities and success. It is well established that grant aid increases the probability of enrollment in postsecondary educatio...

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The Effects of Grant Aid on Student Persistence and Degree Attainment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence:

/pdf/the-effects-of-grant-aid-on-student-persistence-and-degree-271mj9vc6s.pdf

The Effects of Grant Aid on Student Persistence and Degree Attainment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence. CEPA Working Paper No. 18-04.

Technology-facilitated interventions following high school graduation have shown promise for increasing the likelihood of college matriculation, but we know little about how to fine-tune these tool...

/pdf/experimental-evidence-on-the-effects-or-lack-thereof-of-42xcvcfj83.pdf

Experimental Evidence on the Effects (or Lack Thereof) of Informational Framing During the College Transition

Innovation in instructional technology has contributed to the rapid implementation of technology-driven instructional platforms, particularly in developmental math coursework. Prior research has shown that instructional environment and classroom experience influence student development and outcomes. Consequently, when courses transition to technology-driven instruction, a logical concern on the part of faculty and administrators is the effect on the quality of the academic experience among students. Under a hybrid emporium model, students primarily receive instruction from a computer-based platform rather than from a faculty member delivering content in front of the classroom. This paper examines how students experience a newly adopted, hybrid emporium model for developmental math coursework. We conducted focus groups with students at six public colleges in Tennessee and find that students enrolled in hybrid emporium developmental math courses reported that the instructional model contributes to lowered barriers to math by increasing cognitive and social accessibility. In spite of prior academic challenges, students perceived math content and their faculty to be more accessible in the computer-driven model than in traditional lecture classes. We discuss these findings in light of recent research suggesting technology-driven instruction does not improve math performance.

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Content and Connections: Students' Responses to a Hybrid Emporium Instructional Model in Developmental Mathematics. A CAPR Working Paper.

Background/ContextResearch links advanced mathematics course-taking to important later outcomes, including college graduation and earnings, yet many students fail to progress into higher math cours...

Jenna W. Kramer

Papers

The Effects of Grant Aid on Student Persistence and Degree Attainment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence:

The Effects of Grant Aid on Student Persistence and Degree Attainment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Causal Evidence. CEPA Working Paper No. 18-04.

Experimental Evidence on the Effects (or Lack Thereof) of Informational Framing During the College Transition

Content and Connections: Students' Responses to a Hybrid Emporium Instructional Model in Developmental Mathematics. A CAPR Working Paper.

Exposure to Same-Race or Same-Ethnicity Teachers and Advanced Math Course-Taking in High School: Evidence from a Diverse Urban District: