Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS), this study examined the college experiences and cognitive outcomes of non-native English speaking (NNES) students. After an extensive control of precollege and college level influences, results indicate that NNES students had a lower level of participation in collaborative…

Academic rigor has long been considered important for students' learning and development in higher education. However, findings about students' outcomes from previous studies of rigor are mixed, in part because of varying conceptions of what constitutes rigor. In quantitative research, rigor is often operationalized in one of two ways: through…

Although a growing body of research has demonstrated the value of interacting with diverse peers, a number of questions remain about the relationship between the quality of students' diversity interactions and their cognitive development. In a longitudinal study following 3 cohorts of students from entry into college through the end of their 4th…

The purpose of this paper was to examine differences between undergraduate students who had multiple exposures to an assessment of moral reasoning development (DIT-2) and students of the same cohort who had fewer exposures to the same assessment. Controlling for a host of individual covariates, the analysis determined that students who took the…

According to the 2017 American Community Survey, more than 1 in 5 US residents speak a language other than English at home, and many are nonnative-English speakers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). Among this fast-growing population, nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) college students are significantly underserved and underresearched (Kanno &…

In this study the authors analyze longitudinal student survey data from the 17-institution Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS) to determine the extent that the influence of overall exposure to clear and organized instruction on four-year growth in two measures of cognitive development is mediated by student use of deep approaches…

Using longitudinal data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, this study measured the impact of first-year seminars on college students' life-long learning orientations. The findings suggest that first-year seminars enhance students' life-long learning orientations and that the effect of first-year seminars is mediated through…

A substantial proportion of college students have always worked while pursuing their college degree. However, despite decades of research on working college students, very little consensus has emerged about the effect of work on college student development. This study analyzes Wabash National Study (WNS) data from 2,931 first-year students at 19…

We utilized data from a multi-institutional longitudinal study to investigate the association between diversity-related coursework and moral development among students over 4 years of college. Our findings parallel the prior research, which support the positive effects of diversity on college students, by offering new evidence that diversity…

Regarding collegiate experiences, several studies have examined the effects of diversity experiences on educational, psychosocial, and other college outcomes (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). However, there exists a limited body of research, which has focused on the impact of those types of experiences on leadership development among students…

This paper synthesizes research from the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education, the National Study on Student Learning, and the Research on Iowa Student Experiences study that estimates the influence of certain effective instructional practices on a range of student outcomes. Student perceptions of two specific teacher…

This study analyzes longitudinal data from 17 four-year institutions in the United States to determine how the distinctive instructional and learning environment of American liberal arts colleges accounts for the positive impact of liberal arts college attendance on four-year growth in critical thinking skills and need for cognition. We find that,…

The purpose of this paper was to determine the effects of deep approaches to learning on the moral reasoning development of 1,457 first-year students across 19 institutions. Results showed a modest positive relationship between our measures of deep approaches to learning and moral reasoning at the end of the first year of college even after…

This study estimates the effects of a deep approaches to learning scale and its subscales on measures of students' critical thinking, need for cognition, and positive attitudes toward literacy, controlling for pre-college scores for the outcomes and other covariates. Results suggest reflection is critical to making gains across the outcomes.

The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education is concerned with advancing pedagogical knowledge and teaching practice to improve student learning and associated outcomes in higher education. This study used data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education to examine the effects of peer learning experiences on gains in…