"Study Gods" offers a rare look at the ways privileged youth in China prepare themselves to join the ranks of the global elite. Yi-Lin Chiang shows how these competitive Chinese high schoolers first become "study gods" ("xueshen"), a term describing academically high-performing students. Constant studying, however, is…

This book reports the findings of a national survey of college student experiences in the 1980s, particularly focusing on what students do and what they perceive to have gained from their college experience. Data for this book are from the responses of 24,427 undergraduates from 74 colleges and universities to the "College Student Experiences…

The purpose of the research program described here was to investigate college students' approaches to learning, and to determine the extent to which these reflected the effects of teaching and assessment demands rather than representing relatively stable characteristics of the individual learners. There were six main areas within the program: (1)…

This book examines the education of rural girls in Kenya and reports on a study of factors influencing girls' educational success or failure. Three chapters provide background on traditional values and practices affecting girls' education; describe Kenya's education system, including preprimary, primary (grades 1-8), secondary, university,…

Perspectives on university-level studies and factors that affect student performance are considered, based on experiences and research conducted at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the University of Birmingham, England. Topics include the following: student goals; the use of lectures for larger groups; the importance of early feedback;…