Report: First Two Years Of College Show Small Gains

[BG45]

[quote][url="http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-01-18-littlelearning18_ST_N.htm"]Report: First two years of college show small gains[/url]

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
Nearly half of the nation's undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college, in large part because colleges don't make academics a priority, a new report shows.

Instructors tend to be more focused on their own faculty research than teaching younger students, who in turn are more tuned in to their social lives, according to the report, based on a book titled Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Findings are based on transcripts and surveys of more than 3,000 full-time traditional-age students on 29 campuses nationwide, along with their results on the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test that gauges students' critical thinking, analytic reasoning and writing skills.

After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.

Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago, the research shows.

"These are really kind of shocking, disturbing numbers," says New York University professor Richard Arum, lead author of the book, published by the University of Chicago Press.

He noted that students in the study, on average, earned a 3.2 grade-point average. "Students are able to navigate through the system quite well with little effort," Arum said.

COLLEGE: Can students learn as well on iPads, e-books?

The Department of Education and Congress in recent years have looked for ways to hold colleges and universities accountable for student learning, but researchers say that federal intervention would be counterproductive.

"We can hope that the (new research) encourages rather than discourages college faculty to learn more about what works in terms of fostering higher levels of student learning," said George Kuh of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University.

Charles Blaich, director of the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium, used by 130 private colleges to improve education quality, said he thinks colleges are aware of the shortcomings but are trying to improve.

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that schools are blind to this," he said.

Other details in the research:

•35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone. Yet, despite an "ever-growing emphasis" on study groups and collaborative projects, students who study in groups tend to have lower gains in learning.

•50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages; 32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.[/quote]

You know, my BS was apparently a really good program if you go by this article's criteria. Anyhow, thought I'd share because I found this fascinating, getting to see things from the other side now as it were; it reads a lot like the articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which tends to discuss how to improve student study habits, reciprocal credit agreements, and how to actually improve the learning environment.

Although his 3.2 GPA for the study's students is far from the average, and I really wanna know his method of sampling...

Edited January 19, 2011 by BG45

[tnavarro61]

[quote]because colleges don't make academics a priority[/quote]

My college must read this. I don't need lots of required parties and extracurricular activities not fit for my course.

[Semper Catholic]

50 years ago: Lets listen to Little Ophan Annie on the speaky-box this Friday night it will be swell!

Now: Lets do anything we can possibly want in 10 minutes.

How are these "findings" surprising. 2 decades ago it would take a month of research to write a report. With google scholar it takes 2 days tops.

When I was in school the vast majority of my knowledge came from using internet research sources instead of the provided text material. You can't blame kids for becoming more efficient at studying.

[Lilllabettt]

I am not really impressed by the 3.2 gpa. That is a relatively low gpa, considering grade inflation. Any idiot can slap together google research and get a "C" nowadays. Quality writing, original ideas ... no matter how far technology gets, that will ALWAYS take a lot of time.

That's the problem I think. Grade inflation. In days of yore, research required a lot more effort, and demands were higher. You had to have academic talent and real interest in learning. A lot of people you see now in college would never have made it in, or if they did they wouldn't have lasted.

Now people go to school because its the "thing to do" or a fun way to spend 4 years. And they can skate by doing that cuz its just not that hard no more.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' timestamp='1295470319' post='2201890']
I am not really impressed by the 3.2 gpa. That is a relatively low gpa, considering grade inflation. Any idiot can slap together google research and get a "C" nowadays. Quality writing, original ideas ... no matter how far technology gets, that will ALWAYS take a lot of time.

That's the problem I think. Grade inflation. In days of yore, research required a lot more effort, and demands were higher. You had to have academic talent and real interest in learning. A lot of people you see now in college would never have made it in, or if they did they wouldn't have lasted.

Now people go to school because its the "thing to do" or a fun way to spend 4 years. And they can skate by doing that cuz its just not that hard no more.
[/quote]
Some programs are far and away more intellectually difficult than others.

[homeschoolmom]

My friend's daughter (a high school junior) was taking a class at a community college for duel credit. The class was something like "interpersonal communications." Two of the three texts were about The Simpsons and South Park. The "teacher" said they would be watching a lot of those two shows. Do I have to mention that she dropped the class after one day? And this is CC... no excuse of "research" or anything. Pure laziness.

[Semper Catholic]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' timestamp='1295479230' post='2201956']
My friend's daughter (a high school junior) was taking a class at a community college for duel credit. The class was something like "interpersonal communications." Two of the three texts were about The Simpsons and South Park. The "teacher" said they would be watching a lot of those two shows. Do I have to mention that she dropped the class after one day? And this is CC... no excuse of "research" or anything. Pure laziness.
[/quote]

Community College programs are worthless

[homeschoolmom]

I'm beginning to agree...

[Lilllabettt]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1295472215' post='2201901']
Some programs are far and away more intellectually difficult than others.
[/quote]


I guess my point is grade inflation is rampant. Even a program that is challenging nowadays was probably more rigorous back in the day, when only the best and brightest even considered going to college.

[XIX]

A nations that kills its unborn can't survive.



Yes, this post is completely on-topic.

[CatherineM]

I don't think that the internet would have helped me memorize the Latin names of all the freaking trees.

I wish I could get in on some of this grade inflation. Our professors can't even give an A without the approval of the Dean of Theology.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Lilllabettt' timestamp='1295484085' post='2201994']
I guess my point is grade inflation is rampant. Even a program that is challenging nowadays was probably more rigorous back in the day, when only the best and brightest even considered going to college.
[/quote]
I'll agree with that. I just didn't like the across-the-board generalization at first.

[BG45]

Lillabet and Nihil, While I see grade inflation as a problem, it really depends on the professors at points. I know in my Freshman history course six and a half years ago we had people drop left and right because the prof was "too hard".

HSM...seriously? I'm reading Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and some people are reading about South Park?

Semper, I busted a kid once for trying to plagiarize a legal brief at my last school from Wikipedia word for word; what he was trying to plagiarize from wasn't even a legal brief, just an article.

tnavarro61, amen. My last school before this one had a brilliant idea they told us all about one day at a meeting of the various clubs and organizations (not the same as a class making you do extracurriculars though)...we all did community service anyhow, so why not make Mandatory volunteer hours for clubs and academic organizations on campus or lose our school backing? It didn't go over well.

XIX, my sleep deprived brain says that you're not kidding.

Catherine, the net never really has helped me with memorization either...in undergrad there was this one professor I took who was very easy if you just did things his way. He had a particular tick whenever he was discussing an item that was on one of the three versions of his test he was going to give out, so if one looked for the tick, you took note of what he said. Eventually I'd end up with 300 things to memorize, 100 would be on whatever version of the test I got that was fill in the blank and spelling counted; I think I got a 98% or so overall, but it was some serious memorization work despite the relative ease of the course.

Okay, did I get everyone who replied? I've been up like 40 hours in the past 48 or so and might've missed someone....

[Semper Catholic]

[quote name='BG45' timestamp='1295511107' post='2202141']

Semper, I busted a kid once for trying to plagiarize a legal brief at my last school from Wikipedia word for word; what he was trying to plagiarize from wasn't even a legal brief, just an article.
[/quote]

If anyone is using Wikipedia as a source (let alone plagiarizing from it) they are either a Freshman or the school has done a horrible job in preparing them.

Google scholar, EBSCO Host, Pub Med, are all huge internet databases you can use for research, that contain peer reviewed, published articles. Where in most cases it would take a few hours just to gather enough books to read for a project, you can now get results from scholarly journals that are on topic in seconds.

Yes grade inflation is a problem but that has more to do with majors then anything else. An International Relations major is not even half as difficult as most Engineering degrees.

[Lilllabettt]

[quote name='Semper Catholic' timestamp='1295519458' post='2202147']

Yes grade inflation is a problem but that has more to do with majors then anything else. An International Relations major is not even half as difficult as most Engineering degrees.
[/quote]


But it is still universities dumbing down majors, reducing requirements, introducing classes like "the Art of Baseball." I took a cardio conditioning class, a weight training class ... as add-ons to my regular schedule, because I wanted the exercise. But there were people in the class doing it for their major ... basically attending gym class for 4 years. When I matriculated I had to demonstrate foreign langauge fluency in a non-household tongue, or take 7 semesters worth of classes. By the time I graduated, the requirement was down to 3 semesters. When I matriculated you had to take SAT II test for writing; no good at writing, no admit. Now they have introduced a mandatory freshman writing class that teaches how to write a standard 5 paragraph essay. Really?