Showing papers on "Higher education published in 1975"

Stimulating responses to mailed questionnaires: a review

Abstract: This study collates findings from the available research literature of sociology, psychology, business, and education on techniques to increase responses to mailed questionnaires. Among the techniques reviewed here are those that employ mechanical or perceptual means to facilitate responses, those that use broad motivational factors to build on social and personal values of the respondent, and those that offer direct rewards for return of questionnaires. It is concluded that a change in over-all research strategy may be necessary to increase our ability to ensure high mail-questionnaire returns. The author is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Research Director for the National Institute of Mental Health Training Project, "Family, Community Agencies, and Behavior Problems," University of New Hampshire.

Individual Demand for Higher Education: A Review and Analysis of Recent Empirical Studies

Abstract: Access to higher education has increasingly become a major priority for state and federal policy-makers. Mixtures of student financial aid and low tuition have increasingly been viewed as the means for equalizing access to and choice among institutions of higher education. This paper reviews the recent empirical evidence on the impact of price changes on individual demand for higher education. The evidence suggests that both low tuition and student grants do stimulate increases in enrollment. However, the student aid induced enrollment response is relatively low and the cost per additional student attracted to higher education may be very high.

Social Class, Academic Ability, and College “Quality”

Abstract: Many studies have examined the effects of social class and academic ability on access to higher education, but there has been little systematic research on the factors influencing who goes where to college. Yet the existing literature indicates that hierarchial differentiation among colleges is an increasingly salient issue for students of education and social stratification. Using nationally representative data from the joint research program of the American Council on Education and the University of California at Los Angeles, this study analyzes the relative influence of social background and academic ability in determining the quality of the college attended. The results indicate that college quality, as measured by selectivity and affluence, is significantly related to social class, with the relationship between the two variables mediated primarily by academic ability. Cross-tabular and regression analyses indicate that measured academic ability is the more powerful predictor of the quality of the college attended, though social class has an independent impact. The study concludes with a discussion of findings that bear on the emerging conflict between merit and equality in higher education. As the proportion of young people attending an institution of higher education approaches half of the 18 to 21 age group (HEW, 1970), the question of who goes where to college becomes increasingly important. Sociologists have long recognized the critical influence of higher education in allocating people to positions in the class structure, and a copious literature examines the influence of socioeconomic status and ability on entrance into college (Folger et al., 1970; Rogoff, 1961; Schoenfeldt, 1968; Sewell and Shah, 1967; Wolfie, 1954). This research has demonstrated that, even when the effects of academic ability are taken into account, there are systematic differentials among classes in access to higher

Components of an Effective Faculty Development Program

Abstract: Since piecemeal efforts to improve college and university teaching have generally proven ineffective, we must turn to a comprehensive approach to faculty development, through which we can develop n...

Primary care career choices and medical student learning styles.

Abstract: The study reported here focused on the influence of medical students' learning styles (that is, how they prefer to receive and use information in learning and problem-solving situations) on (a) their choice of a medical career type and (b) their sources of information and influence in making that choice. The results suggest that those students with learning styles that are associated with primary care careers are also those who are dissatisfied with a traditional basic science curriculum and are influenced more than the average student by concrete work experiences, as well as identification with role models, in making a career decision. Among the implications of these results for medical school admissions, curricula, and faculty is the possibility that more students might consider primary care careers if more primary care experiences and role models were available in medical school.

6: Effective College Teaching:

Abstract: Teaching effectiveness has become one of the most controversial issues in higher education, as pressures of student riots in the 1960's were followed by financial pressures from legislatures and donors. Thus a review of substantive knowledge about effective college teaching is timely. This review updates earlier efforts (McKeachie, 1963, 1970), and emphasizes insights gained since. When we think of teacher effectiveness, we almost inevitably think of the classroom and the teaching methods used by the teacher. Even though only a minority of the college teacher's working hours are spent in the classroom, it is classroom teaching that is the focus of efforts to evaluate and improve teaching effectiveness. Such a focus misses the importance of the instructor's hours spent in planning, counseling, tutoring, and encouraging students, and in meetings devoted to determining educational issues. Nevertheless, the classroom is the chief arena of instructor-student interaction. What goes on in classrooms is important in determining the learning experiences of students. Students can learn without teachers, but the teacher and his methods are rightfully perceived by students as crucial elements in determining their learning. In this chapter we deal with major instructional methods, with student characteristics affecting instructional effectiveness, and with microinstructional variables affecting the learning of a single lesson.

On Applications of Interpretive Structural Modeling to Higher Education Program Planning.

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a detailed study of Unified Program Planning and Interpretive Structural Modeling of Public and Societal Systems. The results of a five member planning team in obtaining an interpretive structural model for a higher education program plan are discussed. Products of participatory exercises and description of the implementation of the planning methodology using interactive computer displays are presented.

Colleagues as Raters of Classroom Instruction.

Abstract: Colleagues can make a unique and important contribution to the evaluation of faculty performance. The evidence from this study, however, indicates that colleague ratings of teaching effectiveness b...

The Public and Private Lives of Higher Education.

Abstract: One way to think about the relation between public authorities and higher educa tion is in terms of the distinction between the public life and the private life of colleges and universities.* The public life of higher education comprises all the plans and decisions affecting colleges and universities made by people other than teachers and students. It includes public discussions and governmental decisions about the support, organization, and structure of higher education; the hearings of legislative committees; the work of coordinating commissions and state departments of higher education; and much (but not all) of university administration. By far the greatest part of what is said in print about higher education is directed toward its public life, and toward decisions that involve agencies outside the colleges and uni versities?decisions about the size of the system, its costs, governance, and the like. The private life of education is what actually happens in the classrooms, the libraries, the laboratories, at the desks and in the offices?the moment-by-moment, day-to-day activities and interactions of teachers and students engaged in teaching and learning. There are, of course, connections between these spheres, between the public and the private lives of higher education. Those connections, which are rarely direct, are almost always more complicated than public discussions might suggest. For exam ple, statesmen of science, congressmen, and public officials debate national science policy; professional and semiprofessional journals carry stories and editorials about the proper funding of science and the best ways of administering those funds. These questions capture, and rightly so, the attention and concern of many. But it is not at all clear what the direct impact of decisions about levels of funding or the forms of organization of federal funding agencies have on the actual business of gaining new knowledge in scientific fields. It is likely that the generous funding of scientific research after World War II played a major role in the explosion of knowledge in the United States and in the rise to pre-eminence of American scientific disciplines in the world community. But with respect to many smaller decisions?for example about the funding formulas for state-supported research or graduate education in a state university?the link between the size and character of that support and the work of a research-oriented graduate department is not nearly so clear. That uncer tainty allows decisions to be made by public authorities without close attention to their real consequences for the private life of universities. But I suggest that it is im portant?and increasingly important the more the state intervenes in higher education?to ask what the right relation is between the public and the private lives of higher education. More specifically, what decisions are appropriate to the sphere of public authority and what decisions should remain within the colleges and universities themselves?

The Politics of Higher Education.

Abstract: That the former should be so is understandable. Higher education is a necessary aspect of national life, and the national government has always been involved. Washington raised the subject in his Inaugural Address. It is the imbalance of the relation that is anomalous. Why has there been so little initiative and effective organization on the part of higher education in pressing its interests with the national government? A review of the experience from the 1950s on suggests that government has behaved about as governments will do, pursuing recognizable in terests, including that of acting and appearing to act in terms of fairly generously defined public interests. Higher education might have been expected to respond by becoming a moderately importunate and reasonably coherent claimant on national resources. During this same period?and given no better opportunity?elementary and secondary schools, and schoolteachers, fashioned themselves into an aggressive national lobby. Higher education did not. In a manner recorded more in literature than in politics, it responded in a passive mode, accepting support it had not the power to command; agreeing without overmuch fuss to the small conditions and obligations that seemed ever to accompany such support. Dignity was maintained; dependency deepened. The series of historical accidents, which over the past two decades have given a political priority to the needs of higher education quite indepen dent of any assertion of those needs by higher education, evidently induced an assumption that people, or rather The People, would always be kind. When, as of late, things have not quite worked as some would wish, there has been a tendency to at tribute this to an aberrant condition in government which will soon enough be righted. This might be termed "Waiting for '76." This paper will contend that political realities are quite different, and that, unless higher education takes a more active part in the shaping of national educational policy, interests of the first order will be jeopardized or lost. In particular, the interests of private institutions, more especially the major private universities, will be lost. Appearances, for the moment, are notably confusing, suggesting simultaneously the closest cooperation and the most protracted hostility. Thus by any general measure, federal funds going to higher education continue to increase at a comfortable pace. Similarly, while in the course of the century two Ivy League universities have sent their presidents to the White House, there has been nothing comparable to the extent Ivy League faculties have of late sent their professors to the Cabinet. In the winter of 1973-74, no less than five such posts?State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture?were held by men whose principal work had been teaching and research in the more prestigious institutions of learning. Along with this there has been 128

The determinants of school achievement in developing countries : the educational production function

Abstract: Literature on educational production functions for developing countries is reviewed and policy implications are considered. Findings from both developed and developing countries indicate that the students's socio-economic background is the major determinant of his academic achievement through all levels of schooling except the upper secondary grades. The impact of such schooling variables as teacher certification, years of education, the availability of school facilities, and composition of student's peer group is generally insignificant except in the upper secondary grades. These variables are usually subject to policy control. On the other hand, the removal of the student from the home environment into a learning environment at school does have an important impact on achievement. However, these exposures to learning variables are not usually subject to policy control. Consequently, policy measures designed to improve the quality of schooling inputs cannot be expected to have a great impact on the output of that system for primary and early secondary grades. Among the few inputs that have a positive impact on academic performance are the employment of highly motivated teachers, provision of a minimum number of textbooks, and promoting the use of homework as a teaching method.