ERIC Number: EJ1272271
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-4985
EISSN: N/A
Myths about Students in Higher Education: Separating Fact from Folklore
Oxford Review of Education, v46 n5 p534-548 2020
Myths about students in higher education pervade both popular and academic literature. Such folklore thrives due to the belated development of systematic enquiry into higher education as a field of academic study, the neglect of an historical perspective, and an over-reliance on opinion-based scholarship and interview data drawn from University lecturers as a proxy for interpreting student attitudes. This paper analyses three popular myths about University students: expansion of the participation rate lowers academic standards ('more means worse'), students in the past were more intrinsically motivated ('loss of love for learning'), and learners apply market-based assumptions in engaging with higher education as a commodity ('student-as-consumer'). These myths have an enduring verisimilitude but the evidence underpinning such claims cannot be empirically substantiated. It is argued that, taken collectively, these myths constitute a recurring moral panic about University students and that the veracity of such claims needs to be evaluated critically on this basis.
Descriptors: Misconceptions, College Students, Educational Research, Academic Standards, Student Motivation, College Attendance, Educational History, Student Attitudes, Commercialization, Student Behavior
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A