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College Environmental Influences on Students' Educational Aspirations
... Unfortunately, in the modern university, these kinds of experiences are feasible only for a small fraction of the undergraduate population. Busy researchers, from others-a question prompted by past work on more general faculty-student relationships (see Mook 2002;Pascarella 1984 for examples) thatshows relatively negative experiences for these groups. ...
... I was also interested in the interaction of course-and field-based experiences with the demographic characteristics of students. Research on student-faculty interaction (Dika 2012;Mook 2002;Pascarella 1984) highlights that research (supervisor-mentor) relationships can systematically disadvantage groups such as women or minorities. ...
This paper compares undergraduate course-based research experiences to field-based research experiences to understand the relationship between these different forms of experiential learning. I study undergraduate research experiences across an economics department at a large Canadian research university. Statistical analysis indicates there are not large differences between field- and course-based experiences. The main differences favour course-based instruction, with course-based experiences associated with more independent thinking and relevant task engagement. Overall, I conclude curriculum designers should focus attention on proper course-based curriculum design rather than simply trying to adapt “research-like” experiences into the classroom.
With the expansion of higher education in China, gender equity has been largely improved at the entrance to undergraduate education. Yet, whether male and female students developed equally during college is still under debate. Using data from a Chinese national college student survey in 2021, this study explores gender differences in learning behaviors and outcomes of college students and examines whether they are influenced differently by educational environmental factors. Employing multiple regression models, we find that though female students outperformed males on active learning behaviors and academic scores, they were less active in higher-order learning behaviors, resource-intensive high-impact educational practice, and student-faculty interactions and reported lower educational gains than their male counterparts. Environmental and educational factors, including institute type, gender composition, academic challenges, and student support, influence the gender gaps in different ways. Overall, most female college students behave under the gender expectations of society and are less responsive to educational factors than their male counterparts. Collectively, these findings underscore the need for heightened awareness of gender gaps in the learning process in different learning environments and advocate for a more tailored collegiate environment that optimally supports female students’ educational pursuits.
Off-campus housing gives students a chance to attain independence toward their personal development because they are not under the control of either parents or the institution’s rules and regulations, more or less on their freedom and independence. The study aimed at examining the impact of off-campus accommodation on students’ social behaviour in Niger state polytechnic, Bida campus. Descriptive survey was adopted, using sample size of 138 students living in various off-campus lodges, chi-square was used to test the formulated hypotheses and the result showed that there is no significant relationship between off-campus accommodation and students’ social behaviour such as independence, freedom, personal growth and development. Conclusively, it is fundamental for all tertiary institutions and stakeholders to consider and prioritise student housing to ensure adequate and good student houses are provided. The management of the polytechnic should take extra measures to monitor the activities and behaviours of students living on campus since there is no significant difference between the behaviours of students living off–campus and their counterparts living on campus.
This paper examines the developmental trajectories of students’ self-authored worldview commitments over four years of college and the reasons they offered for making associated developmental gains. Through a longitudinal, mixed methods approach, we unearthed four distinctive developmental trajectories of a nationally-representative cohort of 9,470 students enrolled across 122 institutions. We found that provocative encounters with worldview diversity — those that appropriately challenged students to examine their own religious commitments — served as catalysts for growth during college. The varied contexts of those provocative encounters, both inside and outside the college classroom, are highlighted in students’ own words. Implications for research are discussed.
Achieving carbon neutrality is a major strategy to combat climate change and achieve sustainable development. Training engineering undergraduates with sustainable development literacy is an important way to achieve this goal in the field of higher education. Based on the college impact model, this research surveyed 1070 engineering undergraduates in Chinese universities to explore the influence of institutional support on undergraduates’ sustainable development literacy, and the empirical analysis was conducted using Structural Equation Modeling. The results showed that institutional support positively and significantly influenced the sustainability development literacy of engineering undergraduates, and student engagement had a mediating role in the relationship between institutional support and sustainability development literacy. Relevant recommendations for cultivating engineering undergraduates with high-level sustainability development literacy are proposed here.
The expansion of higher education in Taiwan has significantly increased the number of college students, including substantial growth of those studying at the master’s degree level. While prior research indicates that the quality of institutions affects students’ achievements, there have been no empirical investigations of how college experiences shape students’ educational aspirations for pursuing graduate education. In this study, we applied hierarchical generalized linear model analytics to national student survey data to examine the factors that contribute to students’ aspirations for pursuing graduate and professional education. The results revealed that gender, admission types, minority status, financial support, SES, academic preparation, college choice, education expectations, college experience domain, and social integration were significantly related with institutional quality, which further affected progression to the next level of education. The findings highlighted the importance of collegiate experiences and suggested that institutions should provide supporting services for students in the profession of student affairs.
The purpose of this article is to introduce the theory of interfaith learning and development to the scholarly community. Building on the work of others, the authors adopted an interdisciplinary, equity-oriented approach to developing the theory, which also serves as the basis for a framework intended to guide and inform interfaith practice. Development occurs through exposure to and participation in college experiences that help students achieve outcomes related to religious, spiritual, and worldview development. Outcomes specific to interfaith learning and development include pluralism, self-authored worldview commitment, appreciative knowledge of religious and non-religious traditions, and appreciative attitudes toward religious and non-religious narratives.
Muffo and Coccari (1982) analyzed data pertaining to the causes of variation in the number and amount of external funds for research. Unfortunately, their analysis is methodologically flawed by the presence of multicollinearity and has led them to conclusions unsupported by their data. By using LISREL, which treats highly correlated manifest variables as indicators of underlying latent factors, this reanalysis shows that the only significant indicators of funding are past success in securing funds and an emphasis on graduate education.
This is a follow-up study of 1500 talented students at the end of the 3rd year of college. Some of the major findings were: (a) natural science retained more talented students than biological science; but both fields attracted less new students than the arts, humanities, and social sciences. (b) Faculties which the students perceived as enthusiastic, warm, and informal in their relationship with students and as stressing achievement, humanism, and independence were associated with student changes to advanced training in arts, humanities, and social sciences. (c) Faculties perceived as enthusiastic and as not pressing for compliance were associated with changes to advanced training in natural and biological sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
An attempt was made to identify differential college effects on the student's motivation to seek the PhD degree. An input-output design for controlling differential student input was applied in a 4-year longitudinal study of 6544 high aptitude students. PhD aspiration appeared to be negatively affected by the size of the student body, the percentage of males in the student body, and the Conventional Orientation in the college environment. The Social Orientation also affected PhD aspiration significantly, but the relationship was very complex. Attending a coeducational liberal arts college appears to increase the student's motivation to seek the PhD, whereas PhD aspiration tends to be reduced as a function of attending one of the northeastern men's colleges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A recent study (see
37: 1939), in which certain college "presses" were interpreted as influencing the student's motivation for advanced training, was re-examined. The method used for controlling the student's initial educational level of aspiration—the analysis of covariance—was thought to be inappropriate, primarily because of anomalies in the correlation between initial and final levels of aspiration. In addition, the estimate of initial level of aspiration, which had been obtained retrospectively from the Ss, was judged to be too undependable for use as a measure of initial level of aspiration. Reanalyses of some of the data failed to support the author's original conclusions about the "effects" of the press on student motivation. Certain methodological problems in studying the influence of college environments on the student were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
1772 students enrolled at 140 colleges was surveyed at the beginning, middle, and end of college. Multiple-regression equations were developed for predicting terminal dispositions to seek advanced graduate or professional training from 8 precollege characteristics. Residual scores, used as indexes of changes in dispositions, were correlated with student reports of their college environments, and factor analyses of the latter were performed. 14 of 33 college press scales, and 3 of 9 factors were significantly correlated with both behavioral and aspirational residuals of men, while none of the scales or factors were significantly correlated with these residuals of women. The disposition to seek advanced training increased with increased exposure to college. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The PhD-producing rates of 36 colleges were subjected to further study. It was shown that a college's productivity rates are related to characteristics of its entering students other than just their academic ability; namely, the percentage planning to major in natural science and the percentage aspiring to the PhD degree. When the effects of these 2 input variables are partialed out, correlations previously obtained between college press and productivity rates are reduced considerably in size. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Educational plans of 2,327 adolescents in the United States and 1,552 adolescents in Denmark are analyzed as a function of school socio-economic status, school program, maternal aspirations and best-school-friends' educational plans. Samples of adolescents, mothers and best-school-friend triads provide direct indicators of interpersonal influence. In both countries, the effect of school socio-economic status is negligible. In the United States, parental aspirations and participation in a college preparatory program each have a strong and independent effect that is much larger than that of peers. In Denmark, parental influence is the most important overall. The cross-cultural differences are interpreted in light of Turner's distinction between "sponsored" and "contest" mobility and suggest that a comprehensive school system can develop without necessarily inhibiting sponsored mobility.
Two types of school context effects--the positive effects of school socioeconomic status and the negative effects of school ability level--are incorporated in a model for college plans and occupational aspirations. Following a discussion of issues arising in research on contextual effects, the model including contextual sources of variation is analyzed using data on 4,303 high school seniors. We find that school context variables do not substantially affect college plans and occupational aspirations, but we observe important effects on two "school process" variables, curriculum placement and college plans of peers. These results are consistent with other recent research efforts, which taken collectively, clarify the nature and form of school context effects.
Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis that student informal interaction with faculty will significantly influence freshman year "over" and "under-achievement." After controlling for twelve student pre-enrollment characteristics, interactions focusing on intellectual and career concerns were found to have significant, but diminishing returns, relationships with residual achievement.
Previous studies of sex differences in adolescents' goals for educational attainment have focused on either educational aspirations or expectations and found that socioeconomic background has a greater effect on the educational goals of girls than boys, and that academic ability has a greater effect on the educational goals of boys than girls. Almost all of these studies are based on students who attended high school between 1955 and 1960. This paper examines more recent evidence on sex differences in both educational aspirations and expectations, obtained from a random sample of eleventh grade students in Pennsylvania. The findings indicate that: (1) boys both aspire to and expect higher levels of educational attainment than girls; (2) the discrepancy between educational aspirations and expectations is greater for girls than boys at higher levels of aspiration; and (3) both socioeconomic background and academic ability, as measured by an achievement test, have a greater effect on educational ambition for boys than girls.
This paper studies the impact of university membership and of participation in university roles and tasks on undergraduate orientations toward scientific or scholarly careers. Differences in personal background characteristics are also considered. Subsamples of data were drawn from ACE-Carnegie surveys of (a) freshman entering U.S. colleges and universities in 1968, (b) the same cohort at Christmas, 1969, and (c) faculty teaching at these institutions during Spring, 1969. Respondents for the present study represented 40 universities and six academic departments in these institutions. Findings show that direct contact with faculty, particularly in departments of high research productivity, was influential in the development of female orientations. This did not hold for male respondents, however, for whom involvement with academic work had a greater impact on orientations.
In order to extend sociological thinking about socialization in secondary schools, I have tested the contention that the social status of a high school independently affects the college-going intentions of its students, using data from a 1955 sample of students in 518 American high schools. The effect, although weak, is found to be more an effect of the social-status composition than of formal organization of the school. The positive effects of school status are found to mask a negative effect; in schools with students of higher average ability, students of any given ability and status are less likely to have college intentions, presumably because standards of competition rise within the school. When this hidden negative effect is held constant, the positive effect of school status on college intention increases.
The development of educational aspirations in high school students is represented in a causal model developed from the point of view of reference group theory and including measures of the influence of referents at two points in time. Change in the relative effects of the various causes specified is central to the investigation. The model is quantified via path analytic procedures separately for males and females using data on 3,687 Canadian students. The data suggest that the influence of referents changes over time, that parents exert the greatest influence, and that sex differences in this decision-making process are manifest.
The controversy surrounding the contextual effects of high school status on college aspirations is reviewed. Some of the ambiguity in research findings may be traced to the failure to consider school conditions which foster and hinder college aspirations. Research on high school students in the metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paul area shows that highly intelligent students are most likely to be found in high status schools. Hence, it may be easier for adolescents at any level of intelligence to get higher grades in low status schools where competition is lean. Within any given category of measured intelligence, attending a high status school appears to raise scores on a less potent predictor of aspirations, school status, and lower scores on a more potent predictor of aspirations, academic rank position. Since rank is an important predictor of college aspirations under all conditions, controlling for rank increases the correlation between school status and aspirations. The analysis suggests that although the effects of school status tend to cancel each other out and the net effect on aspirations is small, the theoretical importance of school status cannot be discounted.
A guide to U.S. colleges is presented for high school juniors and seniors, parents, and counselors. Information on each college includes full-time and part-time enrollments, the nature of the institution controlling the college, and the founding date. The description of the college covers admission, the academic environment, the nature of the student body, religious orientation of the school, and campus life. A selectivity index categorizes colleges according to the academic potential of the students and suggests the difficulty a student may have in being accepted by a particular college and the academic competition that the student will meet. For each college, data are provided on average scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Testing program. Information is also presented on: pursuits of graduates of each institution; the broad fields in which recent graduates have majored and the percentage of majors in each field; a list of each college that conferred degrees in specific major fields; the geographical, racial, and religious composition of the student body; and annual student costs. A state index for each college includes selectivity ratings, and a final index lists colleges by religious affiliation. (SW)
"The large observed differences among institutions in educational outcomes," find the authors, "appear to be more a function of difference in their entering students than of differences in the measurable characteristics of their environment." Harvard Book List (edited) 1971 #723 (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this study of a randomly selected cohort of 10,318 Wisconsin high school seniors, correlational, path, and cross-tabular analyses show that socioeconomic status, intelligence, and parental encouragement all have substantial independent relationships to college plans of males as well as of females and that neither intelligence nor parental encouragement-individually or jointly-can completely account for social class differences in college plans. It substantiates, however, the claim made by other investigators using less rigorous methods and less representative samples that parental encouragement is a powerful intervening variable between socioeconomic class background and intelligence of the child and his educational aspirations. Parental encouragement appears to have its strongest effect on the college plans of males and females who score relatively high on intelligence and come from families occupying relatively high socioeconomic position. Also, ability continues to accentuate the social class differ...
Four independent studies have found that the aspirations of students are influenced by the kind of high school they attent (predominately middle class or prodominately workin class). Examination of these studies reveals several inconsistencies which, it is suggested, can be accounted for by distinguishing between high schools in large metropolitan areas and those in smaller communities. Two major explanatory mechanism, are also identified: (1) variation in educational standards, an consequent differences in students' scholastid development, and (2) peer-group influence on students'attitudes and values. Research with a sample of Canadian girls supports this interpretation of previous findings, although the first mechanism is more clearly demonstrated than the second.
A method for comparing the effectiveness of undergraduate colleges in stimulating their students to seek the Ph.D. is described. The procedure yields separate measures of productivity in the natural sciences and in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, adjusted to control differences in college talent supplies. The results suggest that the productivity measures have substantial validity, and argue for the importance of faculty behaviors in stimulating or inhibiting intellectual achievement.
A new method for evaluating the "Ph.D. productivity" of undergraduate institutions was applied to a sample of 265 institutions. It was found that a college's actual Ph.D. output can be predicted relatively accurately from an "expected" output based on the sex, major fields, and intelligence level of its students. Public institutions were found to be significantly overproductive, and eastern men's colleges and universities were found to be significantly underproductive. Previous findings indicating that the faculty had a causative effect on productivity were not confirmed. These results suggest that Ph.D. productivity may not be a sensitive measure of the effectiveness of undergraduate institutions.
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