The purpose of this study was to investigate the co-curricular experiences, course-taking behaviors, and educational practices that influence the moral reasoning development of 1,469 first-year students at 19 American colleges and universities. Results showed that contexts and practices that encourage students to engage divergent perspectives when…

The publication of Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's influential new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," the findings of which were summarized in an article by the same authors in the March/April "Change," has caused a national furor centering around their multi-institutional findings that the…

This book presents the results and implications of a major new national study exploring the effects of institutional racial composition on African American students' development and their educational outcomes, taking into account individuals' background characteristics, their perceptions of the institutional environment, and their experiences in…

Funded by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts (CILA) at Wabash College, the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS) is a multi-institution, multi-year, longitudinal study designed to identify the academic and non-academic collegiate experiences that foster liberal learning. This article describes how the study was done and…

Liberal arts colleges have prided themselves on providing students with a quality undergraduate education among a scholarly community who are interested in their holistic development. Past research has found students who attended liberal arts colleges more frequently experienced Chickering and Gamson's (1987, 1991) good practices in undergraduate…

Understanding the developmental issues first-time college students face is critical for scholars and educators interested in learning and development. This purpose of this study was to investigate the differential impact of first-year college experiences on the moral reasoning development of 1,469 students in moral transition versus those in moral…

We investigated curricular conditions and educational practices that influenced the development of life-long learning orientations among 405 undergraduate students. Results suggest that growth in life-long learning orientations was facilitated by instruction that included opportunities for reflection, active learning, and perspective-taking and…

Reviews research on the influence of the college experience in students' moral development, particularly within the framework of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Issues discussed include the amount of principled moral growth occurring during college, how much can be attributed to college attendance, institutional characteristics…

Previous research published in this journal found broad-based negative effects of Greek affiliation on standardized measures of cognitive development after 1 year of college. Following the same sample, and employing essentially the same research design and analytic model, the present study found that the negative effects of Greek affiliation were…

Findings of this three-year longitudinal study, based on 172 African American students, suggest that attendance at an historically Black college significantly enhances the intellectual growth of African American students. The findings held for both standardized, objective measures of reading comprehension, and for self-reported measures of gains…

Discusses previous research that found broad-based negative effects of Greek affiliation on standardized measures of cognitive development after one year of college. Following the same sample, the present study found that the negative effects of Greek affiliation were much less pronounced during the second or third years of college. (Contains 32…

This study examined possible solutions to the paradox faced by college administrators as they try to increase diversity in the student body while minimizing tensions. The study used 1994 data on 2,050 second-year college students from the National Study of Student Learning, a longitudinal investigation of factors influencing student learning and…

Frequent informal interactions between faculty and students are positively related to the students' academic performance and self-perceived personal growth. (ED)

Originally published in March/April 1996, examines the research literature examining the effects of students' out-of-class experiences on academic, intellectual, or cognitive learning outcomes. Identifies those aspects of students' out-of-class experiences over which student affairs professionals have some control through policy or programmatic…

Substantive and methodological problems encountered in a five-year synthesis of research on college impact are discussed, including general issues in higher education research and scholarship, relevance of assessments of student change, unnoticed indirect effects of college experience, inattention to individual differences, validity of common…