Student Success in College E-Book

George D. Kuh

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 576

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Student Success in College describes policies, programs, and practices that a diverse set of institutions have used to enhance student achievement. This book clearly shows the benefits of student learning and educational effectiveness that can be realized when these conditions are present. Based on the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project from the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, this book provides concrete examples from twenty institutions that other colleges and universities can learn from and adapt to help create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

PREFACE

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

HOW TO READ AND USE THIS BOOK

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART I - Introduction

Chapter 1 - Student Engagement

WHY EFFECTIVE EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE MATTERS

DOCUMENTING EFFECTIVE EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE (DEEP)

KEEP IN MIND

NO SINGLE BLUEPRINT FOR STUDENT SUCCESS

PART II - Properties and Conditions Common to Educationally Effective Colleges

Chapter 2 - “Living” Mission and “Lived” Educational Philosophy

MISSION

OPERATING PHILOSOPHY

MEET THE DEEP SCHOOLS

MAKING SPACE FOR DIFFERENCE

MISSION CLARITY: “TELL ME AGAIN—WHAT ARE WE ABOUT?”

SUMMARY

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY ABOUT A LIVING MISSION AND LIVED EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Chapter 3 - An Unshakeable Focus on Student Learning

VALUING UNDERGRADUATES AND THEIR LEARNING

EXPERIMENTING WITH ENGAGING PEDAGOGIES

DEMONSTRATING A COOL PASSION FOR TALENT DEVELOPMENT

MAKING TIME FOR STUDENTS

FEEDBACK: IMPROVING PERFORMANCE, CONNECTING STUDENTS AND FACULTY

SUMMARY

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY ABOUT FOCUSING ON STUDENT LEARNING

Chapter 4 - Environments Adapted for Educational Enrichment

USING THE SETTING FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

CREATING HUMAN SCALE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY ABOUT ADAPTING ENVIRONMENTS FOR EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGE

Chapter 5 - Clear Pathways to Student Success

ACCULTURATION

WHAT NEW STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW

AFFIRMING DIVERSITY

ALIGNMENT

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY ABOUT CREATING CLEAR PATHWAYS TO STUDENT SUCCESS

Chapter 6 - An Improvement-Oriented Ethos

REALIZING THE VISION: THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO

MAKING STUDENT SUCCESS A PRIORITY: FAYETTEVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY

INVESTING IN UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION: THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

FOSTERING INSTITUTIONAL RENEWAL: UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT FARMINGTON

CHAMPIONING LEARNING COMMUNITIES: WOFFORD COLLEGE

CREATING A CAMPUSWIDE INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITY: URSINUS COLLEGE

POSITIVE RESTLESSNESS

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

DATA-INFORMED DECISION MAKING

SUMMARY

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY ABOUT INNOVATING AND IMPROVING

Chapter 7 - Shared Responsibility for Educational Quality and Student Success

LEADERSHIP

FACULTY AND STAFF DIVERSITY

STUDENT AFFAIRS: A KEY PARTNER IN PROMOTING STUDENT SUCCESS

FOSTERING STUDENT AGENCY

THE POWER OF ONE

WHAT’S NOTEWORTHY ABOUT SHARING RESPONSIBILITY FOR EDUCATIONAL QUALITY

PART III - Effective Practices Used at DEEP Colleges and Universities

CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITIES

Chapter 8 - Academic Challenge

HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR STUDENT PERFORMANCE

EXTENSIVE WRITING, READING, AN D CLASS PREPARATION

RIGOROUS CULMINATING EXPERIENCE FOR SENIORS

CELEBRATIONS OF SCHOLARSHIP

SUMMARY

Chapter 9 - Active and Collaborative Learning

LEARNING TO LEARN ACTIVELY

LEARNING FROM PEERS

LEARNING IN COMMUNITIES

SERVING AND LEARNING IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY

RESPONDING TO DIVERSE LEARNING STYLES

SUMMARY

Chapter 10 - Student-Faculty Interaction

ACCESSIBLE AND RESPONSIVE FACULTY

ACADEMIC ADVISING

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGIES

SUMMARY

Chapter 11 - Enriching Educational Experiences

INFUSION OF DIVERSITY EXPERIENCES

INTERNATIONAL AND STUDY ABROAD

ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGIES

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

INTERNSHIPS AND EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

COCURRICULAR LEADERSHIP

SUMMARY

Chapter 12 - Supportive Campus Environment

TRANSITION PROGRAMS

ADVISING NETWORKS

PEER SUPPORT

MULTIPLE SAFETY NETS

SPECIAL SUPPORT PROGRAMS

RESIDENTIAL ENVIRONMENTS

SUMMARY

PART IV - Summary and Recommendations

Chapter 13 - Principles for Promoting Student Success

TRIED AND TRUE

SLEEPERS

FRESH IDEAS

PERENNIAL CHALLENGES

SUMMARY

Chapter 14 - Recommendations

ORGANIZING FOR STUDENT SUCCESS

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A - Research Methods

APPENDIX B - Project DEEP Research Team

APPENDIX C - National Survey of Student Engagement

INDEX

Copyright © 2005 by American Association for Higher Education,

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7879-7914-7 (alk. paper)

1. College student orientation—United States. 2. Documenting Effective Educational Practice (Project) I. Kuh, George D. II. Documenting Effective Educational Practice (Project)

LB2343.32.S79 2005

378.1’98—dc22

2004027912

HB Printing

The American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) is an independent, membership-based, nonprofit organization dedicated to building human capital for higher education. AAHE is the source of choice for information about higher education on issues that matter in a democratic multiracial society, and AAHE promotes and disseminates examples of effective educational practice to address those issues. AAHE members are a national talent pool willing and ready to share their expertise with colleagues in higher education, policymakers, media professionals, and the public at large. AAHE’s Web address is www.aahe.org.

PREFACE

SOME MONTHS AGO, faculty and administrators from a dozen different colleges and universities came together to discuss the institutional policies and practices they believe are associated with student success. During the three-day meeting, one person attributed his institution’s relatively strong graduation rates and other indicators of quality to the good fortune of having many “gifted amateurs” as colleagues. He quickly added he wasn’t sure how long his college would be able to maintain its excellence relying on well-intentioned “amateurs,” given the profound changes occurring in the student body, the disciplines, pedagogical approaches, and so on. His worry is well placed.

The college-going stakes are higher today than at any point in history, both in terms of costs and potential benefits to students and society. Indeed, virtually all forecasters agree that to be economically self-sufficient in the information-driven world economy, some form of postsecondary education is essential, with a baccalaureate degree being much preferred. This realization has hit all demographic groups, bringing waves of historically underserved students to campus. The task is to do something at a scale never before realized—to provide a high-quality postsecondary education to more than three-quarters of the adult population. Yet many students are not as well prepared academically as faculty members would like. Many students find the social as well as academic environments somewhat foreign—if not unfriendly—and challenging to navigate. In the face of escalating costs and lagging state support, institutions are under mounting pressure from state and federal oversight agencies to demonstrate that they are doing everything possible to keep college affordable and to graduate students in a timely manner. Accreditation agencies require evidence that students are learning what colleges intend.

This is a pretty complicated scenario for gifted amateurs to manage. The times require reflective, student-centered professionals, expert to be sure in their respective disciplines but also knowledgeable and skilled in areas required by the management functions they perform. They must also be familiar with policies and practices that are linked to student success, broadly defined to include satisfaction, persistence, and high levels of learning and personal development of the increasingly diverse students enrolling at their institution. There is no single best curriculum or career path to prepare for this work. There are, however, places to turn to get some good ideas for what to do. One approach is to creatively swipe—in the organizational management guru Tom Peters’s (1987) words—what seems to be working at high-performing institutions. That’s what this book is about—the search for policies and practices associated with student success in college.

PURPOSE OF THE BOOK

The project on which this book is based follows in the tradition of previous efforts to document noteworthy performance in postsecondary settings. Several widely disseminated volumes lay out many of the key concepts associated with student success and strong institutional performance, including Involvement in Learning (Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education, 1984), and “The Seven Principles for Good Practices in Undergraduate Education” (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). A handful of other reports flesh out these and related factors and conditions in more detail, among them Peter Ewell’s synthesis produced for the Education Commission of the States’ (1995) Making Quality Count. Other major studies of educational effectiveness are mentioned in Chapter One. Taken together, these reports point to the following institutional conditions that are important to student development:

• A clear, focused institutional mission

• High standards for student performance

• Support for students to explore human differences and emerging dimensions of self

• Emphasis on early months and first year of study

• Respect for diverse talents

• Integration of prior learning and experience

• Ongoing practice of learned skills

• Active learning

• Assessment and feedback

• Collaboration among students

• Adequate time on task

• Out-of-class contact with faculty

Many of these practices have taken root to varying degrees in different colleges and universities across the country. For example, thanks to the pioneering work of John Gardner and his colleagues, first at the University of South Carolina and more recently at the Policy Center on the First Year of College, most institutions are now concentrating resources on first-year students. Learning communities are becoming increasingly popular, though they vary widely in terms of their structure, coherence, length, and other design elements as recent reports produced by the Washington Center show. Study abroad is receiving additional attention as an enriching educational experience. Service learning and related forms of community involvement appear to benefit both students and the local agencies and people they touch. The national movement to incorporate more active and collaborative learning activities continues to gain momentum. Indeed, we were initially surprised after the first round of National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) results five years ago with the amount of active and collaborative learning students were reporting. However, the few large-scale studies of the phenomena provide only a surface reading of the frequency with which these activities are used, not necessarily the quality of the experiences or their effectiveness, relative to other activities and pedagogical techniques.

These effective educational practices have been around long enough that even casual readers of the professional higher education literature are familiar with them. They are working their way into discipline-based journals as disparate as communication studies, economics, and engineering, as well as periodicals that focus more broadly on the liberal arts and sciences, such as Liberal Education and Daedulus. Absent from the literature is a comprehensive, systematic study of institutions that reach many students with these practices. In other words, what does an educationally effective college or university look like at the turn of the 21st century? The twenty institutions that are the basis of this book serve that purpose nicely.

HOW TO READ AND USE THIS BOOK

The book is divided into four parts. Part One sets the stage, discussing in more detail why we undertook the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) project. As we explain in Chapter One, we set out to identify and document what strong-performing colleges and universities do to promote student success, which we defined as higher-than-predicted graduation rates and better-than-predicted student engagement scores on the NSSE. In addition, we summarize how and why we selected this particular set of schools. We also introduce the concept of student engagement and describe its relationship to college student success. Appendix A summarizes the research approach we used to collect information from the participating institutions.

In Part Two (Chapters Two through Seven) we discuss the six overarching features we found to be common to the 20 DEEP colleges and universities. Chapter Two is especially important, as it includes descriptive information about each institution’s mission and context, which is needed to understand and interpret how and why the specific policies and practices illustrated later work so well together to promote student success. As we emphasize throughout, the noteworthy level of performance achieved by these colleges and universities is a product not only of the various programs and practices they have in place, but the numbers of students touched in meaningful ways by one or more, the quality of the respective initiatives, and the synergy and complementarity of these efforts that create a success-oriented campus culture and learning environment. Chapter Six includes some illustrative examples of the circumstances and triggering events that put several DEEP schools on a path toward institutional improvement that created these conditions.

Chapters Eight through Twelve in Part Three present examples of policies, programs, and practices that can be adapted by other institutions to enhance student engagement in each of the five areas of effective educational practice measured by the National Survey of Student Engagement. Even with a book of this length, it’s not possible to describe every noteworthy initiative at these 20 schools. We present a mix of some of the more common examples along with a sprinkling of novel, boutique-like programs to illustrate that institutions can effectively reach fairly large numbers of students with high-quality initiatives while also tailoring other efforts to address the varying needs of different groups of students. We’re convinced that many of these practices can be productively adapted by other institutions, whether or not they are similar in mission, size, and so forth.

In Part Four, we summarize and interpret our findings at a somewhat more abstract level of analysis. Chapter Thirteen synthesizes the principles that guide the work of large numbers of faculty and staff members at DEEP colleges. Chapter Fourteen offers recommendations for colleges and universities that are committed to enhancing student success. In addition to these general recommendations, almost every page of Chapters Two through Twelve contains one or more ideas for improving educational practice. Thus, the book’s utility will increase upon subsequent readings, after the reader absorbs the big picture of what makes for effective educational practice. Indeed, as will become evident, the foundation of strong performance is a multilayered tapestry of enacted mission, coherent operating philosophy, and promising practices woven together and reinforced by key personnel in a consistent, caring way to create a compelling, coherent environment for learning.

Finally, in an effort to make the book reader-friendly, we use research notes and references sparingly throughout the middle sections of the book, as we want readers to focus on what these institutions do by way of effective educational practices. As we indicated earlier, we have benefited from the ground-breaking work of those who have gone before and cite relevant work, especially early in the book and again when summarizing and synthesizing our findings in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen.

We talked with more than 2,700 people across the 20 campuses during the course of this two-year project, many of them more than once. Though everyone we spoke with contributed to the insights we gleaned about effective educational practice, we mention by name only a few people in the book; most were senior administrators at the time of the study. This enables us to focus mainly on the institutions per se, as opposed to individuals. Even so, as will become clear early on, DEEP colleges are special places precisely because of the people who work, live, and study there.

Indeed, the more time we spent on these campuses, delving into what they do and how they do it, the more we were impressed with the range and quality of their initiatives. This can become mildly problematic, should the high regard we developed for the good work being done at these colleges and universities make it appear that we are proselytizing on their behalf. That’s not our intent, though we admire the convictions that animate these institutions and their willingness—even enthusiasm—for experimenting with promising pedagogical approaches and organizational arrangements. Another reason the text may seem overly generous is that our prose is intentionally descriptive, not evaluative. That is, because we sought to discover and feature what is working well on these campuses, we do not dwell on their shortcomings. No organization is perfect, including these fine colleges and universities. They grapple everyday with many of the same challenges facing most institutions, and we address some of these matters in Chapters Two and Thirteen. For better or worse, we say little about other issues bedeviling these and other colleges today, such as the proper role of athletics and helping students meet the rising cost of college, both of which affect whether various groups of students will benefit to the fullest extent from the college experience. But as we explain later, one of the qualities that makes the DEEP schools distinctive is the way they address issues such as these while keeping their eye on the prize of student success.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A project such as this has many intellectual debts, not the least of which is to the inspirational students, faculty, and staff at the institutions we visited and the scholars whose prior work continues to inform our understanding of effective practice. Our working partners in this and related initiatives are colleagues at the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE), including Vice President for Programs Barbara Cambridge, President Clara Lovett, and Project Manager Lacey Leegwater. AAHE staff coordinated a series of roundtables in 2003-2004 with different constituent groups around the country that helped inform our understanding of how institutions were using student engagement data in various ways to improve educational practice. These reports are available at (www.aahe.org/DEEP/roundtables.htm).

We are indebted to Sam Cargile and Susan Conner at Lumina Foundation for Education for their keen interest and unwavering support for a study of high-performing colleges. Another key partner is the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts (CILA) at Wabash College, especially President Andrew Ford, Dean Mauri Ditzler, and Professor Charles Blaich, who early on saw promise in how the project could be used to inform liberal arts education and liberal arts colleges. Without the support of Lumina and CILA, this study would have remained just a potentially informative endeavor.

Offering sage advice behind the scenes from beginning to end were past and present members of the NSSE National Advisory Board (http://www.iub.edu/~nsse/html/advisory_board.htm) and DEEP Advisory Panel (http://education.indiana.edu/~nsse/nsse_institute/deep_project/student_success/advisory_board.htm). The latter group does double duty, serving also as advisors to the Building Engagement and Attainment of Minority Students project, a multiple-year initiative also funded by Lumina Foundation for Education.

We owe a special word of gratitude to three friends of student engagement who continue to influence our thinking and work. C. Robert Pace, UCLA professor emeritus, is the progenitor of what we today call student engagement. Bob introduced the concept of quality of effort in the early 1970s, and with Spencer Foundation support launched the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) research program. Many of the questions on the NSSE survey are from the CSEQ. We think of Peter Ewell as the godfather of NSSE, for he chaired the design team that developed the survey and remains a trusted advisor. Russ Edgerton had the foresight and courage to invest in the premise and promise of student engagement when he directed the education program at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Without Russ’s leadership and Pew support, we’d be nowhere near this far along in changing the nature of the public dialogue about what matters to collegiate quality.

In every possible way, we were buoyed by our colleagues and friends at the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research. They covered for us during our many trips to DEEP schools, for which we are most grateful. To a person, they are a superbly talented and productive group. Our work and lives are enriched immeasurably by being around them.

Last but certainly not least, the rich and varied expertise of the DEEP research team (Appendix B) made this project a career highlight. Represented as “Associates” in the list of authors, they are co-investigators and key contributors to this volume in every sense of the word. Their insights and excellent field work appear on every page. Equally important, collectively they brought a breadth and depth of perspective and experience that may be heretofore unmatched in studies of colleges and universities. We are deeply appreciative of what they brought and gave to this project and book. Thanks, DEEP team!

February 15, 2005

George D. Kuh Bloomington, Indiana

Jillian Kinzie Bloomington, Indiana

PART I

Introduction

On other campuses, I hear they just read from the book and discuss the material in the abstract. Here we tell how the reading relates to our life—our history and background. It is much more personal and has feeling. I would not be able to relate otherwise; that is what made the education engaging for me.

—California State University at Monterey Bay first-year student

The one thing that really helped me to get through college was the faculty. Theyhave this philosophy that the first thing that comes to mind is the student.They have an open door and open ears to what students want to do in collegeand what they want to learn.

—University of Texas at El Paso senior

I never thought I would study abroad because I am such a homebody. . . .I heard about the London Review in a presentation in one of my businessclasses and I thought I should look into it. I went on the two-week trip andthen decided to spend an entire semester abroad.

—University of Kansas senior

Wabash has made me a man. Instantly there’s a lot going on and you’re expected to jump in headfirst. It breeds confidence. You think, “Hey, I can do this, too.” You get the sense that you can achieve anything.

—Wabash College junior

The people here have helped me develop who I am. No one ever encouraged me in science before. Internships and study abroad got me into environmental activism. I’ve learned how the majority of the world lives, and that you don’t need all the stuff you think you need. There are so many opportunities here and once I started, I just never quit!

—Wheaton College senior

The whole education at UMF is about constant reflection. You develop adeliberate, thinking state of mind. Thinking critically becomes second nature.They’re tricky like that!

—University of Maine at Farmington senior

The number one thing I like here is the interaction in the classroom. We have intimacy and respect with the faculty. They don’t baby-sit you, but you get a lot of attention. You’re asked to reflect on yourself and your character, and it broadens your understanding of life. I’m a better leader because of it.

—Longwood University junior

Students are so empowered here to be engaged. We truly have ownership of our lives and so we just assume we’ll be in charge of things. It’s amazing how motivated that makes you to take on responsibility and succeed.

—Miami University sophomore

There are many challenges here. You have to challenge yourself academically, challenge yourself to understand people from diverse backgrounds, and challenge yourself to understand the community and the world.

—Macalester College junior

These students seem to be thriving in college. They describe experiences that challenged them to develop skills, awareness, and confidence. Although the colleges the students attend are very different, the institutions perform well on two important measures. That is, when the institutions’ resources and student characteristics are taken into consideration, all graduate more students than might be predicted, and their students partake more frequently than predicted in activities that encourage learning and development.

What accounts for these achievements? And what can other colleges and universities learn from them to enhance their own effectiveness?

The Educationally Effective Colleges Quiz includes some clues. (Hint: Review the student quotes earlier.) The answers are at the end of Chapter Two. If you read straight through to that point, without skipping the pages in between, you should do well on the quiz. What will become apparent early on is that the colleges and universities represented in the questions are very different in size and educational mission. Some on the list might surprise you. What they all have in common is that they take undergraduate education very seriously and have implemented policies and practices and cultivated campus cultures that encourage their students to take advantage of a variety of educational opportunities.

To find out more about these institutions and what they do to promote student success, read on!

Exhibit 1. Educationally Effective Colleges Quiz.

1

Student Engagement

A Key to Student Success

FOR DECADES, the college graduation rate has hovered around 50% (Astin, 1975; Braxton, 2000; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Tinto, 1993). Until the 1970s, graduation rates were calculated on a four-year metric. Today the standard denominator is six years, which acknowledges the college-going patterns of contemporary undergraduate students, many of whom attend college part time. Nearly one out of five four-year institutions graduates fewer than one-third of its first-time, full-time, degreeseeking first-year students within six years (Carey, 2004). Even if baccalaureate completion estimates are low, as some claim (Adelman, 2004), everyone agrees that persistence and educational attainment rates, as well as the quality of student learning, must improve if postsecondary education is to meet the needs of our nation and our world. Indeed, as we write, the House subcommittee drafting the reauthorization legislation for the Higher Education Act has included language requiring colleges and universities to report degree completion rates for certificates and degrees for students who start at the institution or who transfer to it. Although not everyone agrees as to the most appropriate way to compute graduation rates, it is clear that increasing persistence and degree completion is a high priority for many institutions. The best predictors of whether a student will graduate or not are academic preparation and motivation (Adelman, 2004; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Thus, the surest way to increase the number of “successful” students—those who persist, benefit in desired ways from their college experiences, are satisfied with college, and graduate—is to admit only well-prepared, academically talented students (Kuh, 2001a).

The problem with this approach is obvious. More people, from a wider, deeper, and more diverse pool of undergraduates, are going to college (Keller, 2001). Moreover, in the coming decade, four-fifths of high school graduates will need some form of postsecondary education to acquire the knowledge, skills, and competencies necessary to address the complex social, economic, and political issues they will face (Kazis, Vargas, & Hoffman, 2004).