Evaluating the Effectiveness of College

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent post “Evaluating the Effectiveness of College” [Hake (2013)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT:Matthew Von Hendy of the EvalTalk list pointed to an article “Congratulations, College Graduate. Now Tell Us: What Did You Learn?” [Selingo (2013a)] at http://linkd.in/10FdFui. Selingo, in turn, pointed to the research of Arum & Roksa (2011) as presented in their book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses http://bit.ly/RrkWhK. For a more extensive discussion than Selingo’s on the limited learning imparted by U.S. higher education see, e.g.:

(a) “Are colleges failing?” [Hake (2005)] at http://bit.ly/erBRGN;

(b) “Should the Culture of University Science Education Be Changed” [Hake (2011)] at http://bit.ly/iegznz;

(c) “Re: Culture Change for Learning” [Hake (2012a)] at http://bit.ly/HJ2zLf; and

(d) “U.S. Colleges Put Low Priority on Student Learning” [Hake (2012b) at http://bit.ly/KU0UEy.

The above four essays reference, in addition to Arum & Roksa (2011) [in chronological order by publication date]:

(1) Academic Duty [Kennedy (1999)] at http://bit.ly/edBogg;

(2) A University for the 21st Century [Duderstadt (2000)] at http://bit.ly/cvJ1yI;

(3) Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More [Bok (2005b] at http://amzn.to/kXOKbF;

(4) Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids - and What We Can Do About It [Hacker & Dreifus (2010)] at http://amzn.to/bunggt

(5) We’re Losing Our Minds: Rethinking American Higher Education [Keeling & Hersh (2011)] at http://bit.ly/IOE8wU; and

(6) College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be [Delbanco (2012)] at http://bit.ly/LzpMny.

A precursor of the above six books critical of U.S. higher education is Jacques Barzun’s (1968, 1993) The American University: How It Runs, Where It Is Going at http://bit.ly/10umFkS.
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To access the complete 23 kB post please click on http://yhoo.it/16cJ7HO.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
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“. . . studies indicate that problem-based discussion, group study, and other forms of active learning produce greater gains in critical thinking than lectures, yet the lecture format is still the standard in most college classes, especially in large universities."
- Derek Bok (2005), former president of Harvard University, in "Are colleges failing? Higher Ed Needs New Lesson Plans" [Bok (2005b)]

“The academic area is one of the most difficult areas to change in our society. We continue to use the same methods of instruction, particularly lectures, that have been used for hundreds of years. Little scientific research is done to test new approaches, and little systematic attention is given to the development of new methods. Universities that study many aspects of the world ignore the educational function in which they are engaging and from which a large part of their revenues are earned.”
- Richard M. Cyert, former president of Carnegie Mellon University, quoted in Tuma & Reif (1980):

“Few faculty members have any awareness of the expanding knowledge about learning from psychology and cognitive science. Almost no one in the academy has mastered or used this knowledge base. One of my colleagues observed that if doctors used science the way college teachers do, they would still be trying to heal with leeches. ”
- James Duderstadt (2000), President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, in A University for the 21st Century [Duderstadt (2000)]

“We have not been very systematic about our quest to improve teaching, even though we value it highly and frequently do well at it. I am struck, for example, by the lack of conversation about what pedagogy means, and what makes it successful. It is our profession, yet it is mysteriously absent from our professional discourse. Here we are, engaged in an activity that is vital to ourselves, our students, and our public - yet we speak of how to do it, if at all, as though it had no data base, lacked a history, and offered no innovative challenges. ”
- Donald Kennedy, former president of Stanford University, in his "Stanford President's Address: Stanford in Its Second Century" - see also AcademicDuty [Kennedy (1999)].


REFERENCES [URL’s shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 15 May 2013.]
Bok, D. 2005a. “Are colleges failing? Higher Ed Needs New Lesson Plans,” Boston Globe, 18 December, copied into the APPENDIX of Hake (2005).

Duderstadt, J.J. 2000. A University for the 21st Century. Univ. of Michigan Press, publisher’s information at http://bit.ly/cvJ1yI. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/lxT8YU, note the searchable “Look Inside” feature.

Hake, R.R. 2005. “Are colleges failing?” AERA-L post of 19 Dec 2005 17:54:37-0800; online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/erBRGN. The APPENDIX contains a copy of Bok (2005).

Hake, R.R. 2013. “Evaluating the Effectiveness of College,” online on the OPEN! Net-Gold archives at http://yhoo.it/16cJ7HO. Post of 14 May 2013 16:35:04-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold.

Kennedy, D. 1999. Academic Duty. Harvard University Press, publisher’s information at http://bit.ly/edBogg. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/hbeAsp, note the “Look Inside” feature. An expurgated Google book preview is online at http://bit.ly/hmuC5R.

Tuma, D.T. & F. Reif, eds. 1980. Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research. Lawrence Erlbaum. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/jcAK2d.

U.S. Colleges Put Low Priority on Student Learning

Some blog followers might be interested in a recent discussion-list post “U.S. Colleges Put Low Priority on Student Learning.” The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Norman Stahl of the LrnAsst-L list pointed to Julie Mack’s report http://bit.ly/Jy1RT9 “U.S. colleges put low priority on student learning, say authors of ‘We're Losing Our Minds’.” Mack writes that Richard Hersh, co-author with Richard Keeling of We’re Losing Our Minds http://bit.ly/IOE8wU commented at a recent Educational Writers Association convention: “Higher education really needs to question its priorities, rewards, structures, principles and values. Learning itself must become a primary touchstone for decision-making.”

Among other recent books critical of higher education are: (a) Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids - and What We Can Do About It (Hacker & Dreifus, 2010) http://amzn.to/bunggt; (b) Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Arum & Roksa, 2011) http://bit.ly/gPYBHj, and (c) College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (Delbanco, 2012) http://bit.ly/LzpMny.

Richard Wolin http://bit.ly/LO1EAC, in his insightful review http://bit.ly/KMwcOb of Delbanco’s book, has this to say about the current state of higher education: “America's most prominent philosopher of democracy, John Dewey, devoted a considerable portion of his oeuvre to reflecting on the methods and goals of public education. . . . . In his view, the pedagogical key to cultivating the virtues of active citizenship lay with the antiauthoritarian, dialogic approach of the Socratic method: Dewey believed that democratic education, instead of acquiescing to the mind-numbing requirements of rote instruction, should focus on honing critical thinking, thereby nurturing autonomy. . . . . . . although contemporary educators might agree about the indispensable value of liberal learning, if directly challenged to define its content and purport, they become stricken with paralysis. . . . The end result has been the confused intellectual smorgasbord that defines undergraduate study today. . .[My italics.]. . . Regrettably, one of the major casualties of the restructuring of undergraduate education along vocational and pre-professional lines has been Dewey’s ideal of liberal study as training for democratic citizenship.”
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To access the complete 19 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/KU0UEy.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
rrhake@earthlink.net
Links to Articles: http://bit.ly/a6M5y0
Links to SDI Labs: http://bit.ly/9nGd3M
Blog: http://bit.ly/9yGsXh
Academia: http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/rrhake

“The academic area is one of the most difficult areas to change in our society. We continue to use the same methods of instruction, particularly lectures, that have been used for hundreds of years. Little scientific research is done to test new approaches, and little systematic attention is given to the development of new methods. Universities that study many aspects of the world ignore the educational function in which they are engaging and from which a large part of their revenues are earned.”
- Richard M. Cyert, former president of Carnegie Mellon University, quoted in Tuma & Reif (1980):


REFERENCES [All URL’ shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 25 May 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012. “U.S. Colleges Put Low Priority on Student Learning,” online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/KU0UEy. Post of 25 May 2012 16:57:20-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are also being transmitted to several discussion lists.

Tuma, D.T. & F. Reif, eds. 1980. Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research, Lawrence Erlbaum. Amazon.com information at http://amzn.to/jcAK2d.