How College Affects Students: Volume 3. 21st Century Evidence That Higher Education Works by Matthew J. Mayhew et al.

Abstract

Reviewed by: How College Affects Students: Volume 3. 21st Century Evidence That Higher Education Works by Matthew J. Mayhew et al. John M. Braxton How College Affects Students: Volume 3. 21st Century Evidence That Higher Education Works Matthew J. Mayhew, Alyssa N. Rockenbach, Nicholas A. Bowman, Tricia A. Seifert, and Gregory C. Wolniak with Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2016, 784 pages, $90.00 (softcover) How College Affects Students: Volume 3. 21st Century Evidence That Higher Education Works makes a major and enduring contribution to the literature on how college affects students. The findings detailed in this volume will occupy scholars and practitioners for years to come. This current volume is inextricably tied to the How College Affect Students: Findings and Insights from Twenty Years of Research (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991) and to How College Affects Students: Volume 2. A Third Decade of Research (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Moreover, this current volume will maintain similar stature to the 1991 and 2005 volumes. No other books make such an important contribution as this trilogy. Like the previous two volumes, the authors of this third volume also meticulously and thoroughly review the empirical research that addresses the same six major questions: 1. What evidence is there that individuals change during the time in which they are attending college? (Change during college) 2. What evidence is there that change or development during college is the result of college attendance? (Net effects of college) 3. What evidence is there that attending different kinds of postsecondary institutions have a differential influence on student change and development during college? (Between-college effects) 4. What evidence exists that engaging in different experiences in the same institution are associated with student change and development during college? (Within-college effects) 5. What evidence is there that the collegiate experience produces conditional, as opposed to general, effects on student change or development? (Conditional effects of college) 6. What are the long-term effects of college? (Long-term college effects; p. 3) The nine areas of student outcomes covered in this current volume are also nearly identical to those covered in both the 1991 and 2005 volumes. These student outcome areas consist of the (a) development of verbal, quantitative, and subject matter competence; (b) cognitive and intellectual development; (c) psychosocial change; (d) attitudes and values; (e) moral development; (f) educational attainment and persistence; (g) career and economic impacts of college; and (h) quality of life. Following the structure of the previous two volumes, Mayhew, Rockenbach, Bowman, Seifert, and Wolniak with Pascarella and Terenzini likewise use the above six guiding questions to array the findings of the studies they reviewed for each of these eight domains of student outcomes. Further similarities across the three volumes pertain to the last two chapters of these volumes that share equivalent titles. In the current volume and in the 2005 volume the next to the last chapter bears the same title of “How College Affects Students: A Summary,” whereas “How College Makes a Difference: A [End Page 1059] Summary” constitutes the title for this chapter in the 1991 volume. All three volumes share the same title of “Implications for Research, Practice and Policy” for the final chapter. Moreover, all three volumes give some attention to theory. In the 1991 and 2005 volumes, a separate chapter bears the title of “Theories and Models of Student Change in College.” However, How College Affects Students: Volume 3 begins each of the eight chapters (chapters 2 to 9) that review research pertinent to each of the eight student outcome areas with an overview of theories germane to the focal student outcome. Readers will find much of value in these theoretical overviews. Nevertheless, Mayhew, Rockenbach, Bowman, Seifert, and Wolniak with Pascarella and Terenzini caution readers that the studies reviewed used theory to contextualize their research rather than to explicitly conduct rigorous tests of theory. All three volumes also give attention to methodological issues involved with conducting research on how college affects students. In particular, How College Affects Students: Volume 3 includes an appendix titled “Methodological Appendix: Considerations for Research on College Impact.” Scholars will find this appendix particularly useful as it offers an overview of the...