Abstract
Using data from the 2008 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, we show that study time and academic conscientiousness were lower among students in humanities and social science majors than among students in science and engineering majors. Analytical and critical thinking experiences were no more evident among humanities and social sciences majors than among science and engineering majors. All three academically beneficial experiences were, however, strongly related to participation in class and interaction with instructors, and participation was more common among humanities and social sciences students than among science and engineering students. Bok’s (Our underachieving colleges: A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006) influential discussion of “underachievement’ in undergraduate education focused on institutional performance. Our findings indicate that future discussions should take into account differences among disciplinary categories and majors as well.
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Notes
The best known disciplinary typology, sometimes known as the Biglan-Becher typology (Neumann 2001), is a four-fold classification, dividing fields on one axis by their emphasis on paradigmatic development (the “hard-soft” axis) and, on a second, by their focus on basic or applied subject matter (the “pure-applied” axis) (Biglan 1973a, b; Becher 1989). The “pure-applied” axis is less important for our purposes. Most undergraduate education in the University of California, as well as in other leading research universities, focuses on “pure” subjects. Some important fields in research universities, such as business (a “hard-applied” field) and education (a “soft-applied” field), are offered at only a small number of UC campuses and are therefore not included in these analyses. We do not consider the third dimension of the original Biglan scheme (“life-non-life”) except in so far as it is incorporated into our disciplinary categories (as life sciences) and major categories (as biology, cell and molecular biology, and environmental science).
Recent studies confirming differences in teaching styles and academic goals by level of paradigmatic development include Braxton and Hargens (1996), Braxton et al. (1998), Becher (1994), Hativa (1997), Lattuca and Stark (1994), Smart and Umbach (2007), Smart et al. (2000), and Umbach (2007b). For an overview, see Neumann (2001).
Thus far, studies have focused on over and under-estimates by students in different racial-ethnic groups. These studies suggest that Asian students may underestimate the frequency of academically beneficial experiences, as well as their levels of academic proficiency, while students from other racial-ethnic groups may over-estimate their levels of academic proficiency (Bowman 2008; Brint et al. 2010). Racial-ethnic differences do not figure prominently in the findings of this research, however.
Our categorizations of disciplinary categories and majors are available by request.
Some UC campuses have the reputation as more demanding academic environments than others. However, in unreported results we found that campus showed minimal effects net of covariates in our model. One campus did stand out for higher average levels of study time, but inclusion of campus covariates did not improve model fit on any of the three dependent variables.
In ordinary least squares regression, it is possible that standard errors may be artificially small due to the nested structure of the data (individual students nested in disciplines and majors nested in campuses). To account for this possibility, we used intra-group correlations, in this case by campus, when specifying standard errors. When compared to ordinary least squares regressions, coefficients in the models were unaffected by this specification.
We used list-wise deletion of missing data. We lost 15.7% of freshmen entry upper division students through list-wise deletion. The distribution of cases by disciplinary category and major for students included in the study reflect the distribution of cases across the University of California, including students excluded from the study. The means and standard deviations of variables contributing to the factor scores of our dependent variables, as well as those for the variables in the participation frequency scale, were not significantly different from those reported in Table 1. We are consequently confident that our estimates accurately represent freshmen entry upper-division UC students.
Because of our clustering of standard errors, the standardized regression coefficient for humanities students was marginally higher than that of social science students.
Under-achievement in social science and humanities education has sometimes been attributed to large class sizes or an over-reliance on lecturers (see, e.g., Nelson and Watt 1999, pp. 84–98), but these arguments appear to lack face validity, given the similar conditions found in the life sciences in many research universities. Nor have empirical studies provided support for these factors as primary influences on students’ academic outcomes. (On class size, see Martins and Walker 2006; Pinto et al. 2008; on lecturers, see Bettinger and Long 2004; Umbach 2007a) While larger class sizes and over-reliance on lecturers may not be beneficial in the long run for undergraduate education in the research university, it appears that effective learning environments can be constructed even where class sizes are large and lecturers teach many courses.
Arum and Roksa (2011) argue that the primary source of institutional underachievement has been an implicit treaty among students, faculty, and administrators to limit work demands. In their view, student culture fails to place a premium on learning, as compared to enjoyment of the college experience, and the social side of college life consequently takes priority over academics for all but a minority of high achievers. Faculty members, for their part, are often more interested in research and their own socio-professional involvements than in offering challenging, high-participation classes to undergraduates. Student evaluations that reward instructors for low expectations and high grades help to reinforce this pattern (Babcock 2010). Moreover, pressures to achieve high ratings on student evaluations may be particularly strong for temporary instructors whose extensions often depend on maintaining high teaching evaluations. Administrators are responsible for the economic and political well-being of their institutions, and many must, by the nature of their jobs, be at least as concerned with meeting enrollment targets as they are with the quality of the undergraduate educational experience. This implicit treaty, Arum and Roksa argue, has had the consequence of limiting students’ cognitive development during the college years.
Among the key documents in the recent U.S. discussion of the reform of undergraduate teaching and learning are the following: American Association of Colleges & Universities (2002, 2004), Bok (2006), Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in Research Universities (1998), Chickering and Gamson (1987), Ewell (2001), Ewell and Miller (2005), National Governors Association (1986), National Institute of Education Study Group (1984), and the essays collected in Shulman (2004).
Such a reform would require instructors to show clearly the types of work that yield grades at different points on the curve. It would also require that institutions provide ways to protect instructors from negative performance appraisals simply because they maintain high grading standards (Babcock 2010). Because many students see themselves as entitled to high grades for self-perceived effort (Greenberger et al. 2008), it will be important for professors to communicate clearly that self-perceived effort is not in itself sufficient to yield a high grade (Benton 2006).
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Brint, S., Cantwell, A.M. & Saxena, P. Disciplinary Categories, Majors, and Undergraduate Academic Experiences: Rethinking Bok’s “Underachieving Colleges” Thesis. Res High Educ 53, 1–25 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-011-9227-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-011-9227-2