Critics Of Higher Education Research Articles

CRITICAL THINKING AND UNIVERSITY EDUCATION TODAY

This paper discusses the concept of critical thinking and its place in university education today, internationally as well as in the Serbian and regional Balkan contexts. As an illustration, the second part of the paper offers a review of Gordon Asher’s chapter in Writing Your Thesis: A Guide for Postgraduate Students, a coursebook which incorporates the conception of criticality in higher education, from the perspective of Critical Pedagogy. We highlight the importance of embracing a broad, epistemological understanding of critical thinking, not only as an applicable pragmatic skill, but, rather, as a way back to a more humanistic view of education as emancipation and whole-person development of individuals, for the benefit of both the individual and the society. Lastly, we discuss the importance of methodological tools in teaching for critical thinking.

Towards a More Capacious, Kindly and Caring Criticality: A Post-Critical Manifesto for Ethical-Relational-Creative Reviewing

The words ‘criticality’, ‘critical’, and ‘critique’ can often summon up painful, exposing, and difficult experiences. In a higher education system shaped by hierarchical cultures, abuses of power, performative metrics and competitiveness, many of us are often positioned as (and internalise a sense of ourselves as) lacking. This imputed sense of ‘lack’ begins early in our educational careers and its affective impress often stays with us. As PhD students, we are required to subject ourselves to critique in order to pass confirmation processes; as article authors, our work stands or falls at the critical hands of journal reviewers and editors who, as gatekeepers, decide which of us is ‘accepted’ or ‘rejected’. We write as four members of the larger Get Up and Move! Collective, using the special issue call from CriSTaL to explore criticality, critical, critique, to revisit our own contested entanglements in/with criticality in higher education. We deploy the methodological approaches of compositing and composting to ponder the inimical conditions, negative behaviours, and ill-judged peer review comments that give rise to damaging modes of critique. From our work in the Collective, we consider what a more capacious, kindly, and caring criticality might look, feel, and be like. The article ends with A Post-Critical Manifesto for Ethical-Relational- Creative Reviewing, which outlines a praxis for doing criticality differently.

Most Frequently Asked Questions About Student Learning Outcomes in Poland: A Delphi Study

For decades, critics of higher education have been asserting that competencies students can demonstrate upon course completion are much better predictors of what students know and can do than time spent in courses or grades. However, assessment of student learning has not been adopted by faculty and their leaders, and the effort is normally addressed as a bureaucratic demand. The objective was to identify topics that could help shape the discourse regarding the assessment of student learning. The study revealed that the universities in Poland are ready to ensure graduating students competencies demanded by the contemporary world.

Contingent Faculty Employment and Financial Stress in Public Universities

ABSTRACT Numerous observers and critics of higher education, including some policymakers, have suggested that hiring and maintaining faculty on tenure lines is a primary source of inefficiency in colleges and universities. These “disrupters” argue that reducing commitments to tenure will lead to cost savings and more effective adaptations to changing markets for various degrees. Does increasing hiring of “contingent” (non-tenure-line) faculty indeed bring financial benefits? In this analysis, we use longitudinal data to examine that hypothesis in financially stressed public master’s and doctoral institutions over the period 2003 to 2014. The analysis provides no support for the hypothesis. The implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

“Who Bothers!” A Common Ailment in Higher Education ELT Classrooms in Nepal

Critics of higher education in Nepal, even the concerned agencies, are much worried about the decreased quality resulting in low employability of higher education. The most common adjectives used by them to describe this state are ‘theoretical’ and/or ‘impractical’. The present case study was instigated when two college students of third year Bachelor’s degree majoring in English, one from Bachelor of Arts (B. A.) and the other from Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.), remarked that the excessive lecture-based classes at college were not worth attending regularly. Stemming from this problem, each of the classes was observed once to see if the students’ remark would be verified. As a triangulation process, the observation was then followed by an informal post-class interaction with the faculties whose classes were observed. This article, thus, basically assesses the efficacy of the excessive lecture (EL) within the limitation of teaching English to adult learners of higher education in Nepal. Considering the inefficacious nature of EL to cause learning, and the faculties’ (Note 1) perceptions towards, and an over-attachment with, this method as the unique one, some alternative strategies applicable to English language teaching (ELT) classes have been recommended with the hope that they would be properly used to keep the burdened use of EL reasonably low. The article also recommends some changing roles of faculties involved in ELT in the higher education sector.

HIGHER EDUCATION FOR HIGHER COMPETITIVENESS

The current criticism of higher education is that the education offered does not match the needs of practice. In terms of competitiveness, Germany is about the forefront in Europe, and logically the question of whether higher education is the source from which leads to this result. The objective of this paper is to compare the corresponding study programs of Czech and German universities in the area of Economics by identifying the relevant differences and to confirm or dismiss the validity of the research hypothesis „Business Economics programs at German universities differ in ways that can boost competitiveness“. In order to compare the study programs between Czech and German universities, the eight faculties of Economics geared towards Business and Economics and Bachelor degree program were selected. As an introductory information, the structure of the programs was compared in terms of course load and which courses being compulsory, elective, and various forms of actual work practice and Bachelor thesis. The portfolio analysis of compulsory courses was organized into more general course groups and the percentage share of the total extent of compulsory courses was evaluated and the percentage of the active part. The analysis of Bachelor’s degree programs justifies the validity of the research hypothesis such that German study programs are more focused on practical application in a work environment. To that, contribute significantly the German specific institutions, the universities of applied sciences, which are strongly geared towards the needs of actual practice. The reflection of findings may apply in the context of the forthcoming implementation of amendment to the Higher Education Act.

Liberal Education in Crisis

It is often said that liberal education is in crisis. A long line of books has lamented the decline of the liberal arts tradition for almost a hundred years. But if the symptoms of this crisis are familiar, the nature of the crisis is strange. It is not just that liberal arts colleges are failing to achieve their aims, but that there is a striking lack of clarity about the aims themselves. This lack of clarity does not afflict other institutions. The aim of the research university is to produce and disseminate scholarship and scientific knowledge. The aim of the vocational university is to give students technical expertise and marketable skills. But the aim of the liberal arts college is shrouded in platitudes. The words in which we think about higher education have become so vague and confused it is hard to say precisely how liberal arts colleges differ from research and vocational universities, what they offer that other institutions do not, and why they should exist. The crisis has deep roots. It goes back to the emergence of the research university in the nineteenth century, which altered the assumptions underlying traditional views of higher learning, and shifted the meanings of the basic words in which we think about education. It is because of this deep shift in our assumptions and language that we find it difficult to articulate precisely the nature and aims of liberal education. Catholic colleges matter today because they endured and responded to that shift in an exemplary way, and because the resources of the Catholic intellectual tradition can help us to retrieve and rethink the traditional aims of liberal education. What then has happened to liberal arts colleges? What is the situation of liberal education today? And how can we best understand and respond to that situation? Criticism and Crisis Critics of higher education tend to repeat a set of standard charges. 1. Academic work has become too specialized. 2. Scholarship has become narrow, trivial, and insular. 3. Academics tend to write in a technical jargon that is opaque to outsiders. 4. The undergraduate curriculum has become fragmented and incoherent. 5. Undergraduate education is adrift without any sense of common purpose. 6. Liberal education has become increasingly irrelevant in a world dominated by modern science and technology. 7. Liberal education is economically useless. 8. Liberal education no longer centers on the arts of language. Hence: (a) The quality of academic speech and writing is deplorable; and (b) academics fail to teach students to listen, speak, read, and write. (1) 9. College students are being taught to do independent research, but are not learning to think for themselves. The traits of the crisis are obvious, but its causes are not. How are these traits related? Where do they come from? What are their underlying grounds? To understand this crisis we need a genealogy of the liberal arts college. Very briefly: despite the internal tensions within the liberal arts traditions, liberal education was originally grounded in a number of core assumptions--about the nature of truth, tradition, language, the self, and education. These assumptions supported the distinctive institutions of the traditional liberal arts college: its curricula; pedagogies; disciplinary divisions; the roles of faculty and students; and the language in which education was understood. These institutions and their underlying assumptions were challenged with the emergence of modern science. The thinkers who founded the modern sciences profoundly altered traditional concepts of truth, tradition, the self, and education, and these new concepts laid the foundations of the modern scientific research university. But the research university did not simply replace the liberal arts college. …

Beyond the university: why liberal education matters

An eloquent defense of liberal education, seen against the backdrop of its contested history in America Contentious debates over the benefits-or drawbacks-of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism-often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student's capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America's long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois's humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington's educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams's emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey's calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

Beyond critical thinking to critical being: Criticality in higher education and life

For John Henry Newman, the raison d’être of higher education was to ‘educate the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out toward truth, and to grasp it’ (Newman, 1996, p. 103). But of course, assuming a realist stance, whereupon a singular objective truth exists in every situation, and moreover, that it can be known, Newman's enunciation merely begs the question: how exactly in a world of endlessly competing truths, does one set about choosing the correct one? What competencies or skills ought one employ in order to grasp Aletheia/Truth? Should higher education, either explicitly, or via a hidden curriculum that transcends domain-specific knowledge, imbue criticality? In view of the fact that we all make truth-oriented decisions on a daily basis, very little research has been conducted into the ‘science’ underlying the mechanics of precisely how we scrutinize evidence and use it to justify our decisions and belief systems (Rescher, 2006). This paper proceeds in four parts. Part one briefly outlines the centrality of criticality in higher education as it is found in educational policy and learner outcomes. Part two appraises the critical thinking movement, specifically its insistence on rationality as an organic heuristic entity. Part three argues how criticality has supplanted critical thinking as the sine qua non, of not just higher education, but life itself, whilst part four unpacks the embodied benefits embedded in a tripartite ontology of criticality. To conclude, I shall proffer a synthesis of the findings.

The case for the traditional classroom

Criticisms of higher education and tight budgets have increased pressure on instructors to consider new pedagogical methods, including classroom experiments and online or hybrid/online courses. This study analyzes the impact of different pedagogical methods in six sections of macroeconomic principles taught during the 2011–2012 academic year. A traditional lecture/discussion control section is compared with experimental sections that used an extensive class simulation and two hybrid online sections that met only once per week during the regular semester. Students in simulation sections scored on average nearly five percent worse on the post-test, although those who participated the most did score higher. Students in the hybrid online sections scored nearly ten percent lower than students in the control section. These results indicate that instructors and administrators should be wary of unproven methods, especially online instruction.

Networks of knowledge, matters of learning, and criticality in higher education

Higher education in the UK has become preoccupied with debates over the authority of knowledge and of criticality. In this article we argue that approaches to knowledge in higher education might benefit from a network sensibility that foregrounds the negotiated processes through which the material becomes entangled with the social to bring forth actions, subjectivities and ideas. We draw from a set of analytic perspectives that have arisen from actor-network theory traditionally associated with the writings of Bruno Latour. These approaches emphasise the contingent in knowledge production, even to claim that objects, knowledge or otherwise, come into being through enactment as effects within particular webs of relations. What becomes visible in such analysis is the precarious fragility of concepts and categories often assumed to be immutable, and the work required to establish their stability. We argue that this actor-network analysis helps to move away from a focus on separate entities and individuals to understand their material relationality. This analysis also foregrounds the controversies that tend to be foreclosed in what Latour calls ‘matters of fact’, and makes visible the different worlds in which knowing is evoked in practice. From this departure point the issue of interest is not which knowledge accounts are superior but how and when particular accounts become more visible or valued, how they circulate, and what work they perform in the process. These approaches afford a criticality that we argue open important entry points for rethinking curriculum, teaching and learning in higher education.

Developing student criticality in higher education: Undergraduate learning in the arts and social sciencesBrendaJohnston, RosamondMitchell, FlorenceMyles, PeterFord, 2011London, Continuum Studies in Educational Research, Continuum £75, 247 pp. (including references and index) ISBN 978‐0‐8264‐4117‐1 (hbk)

Developing student criticality in higher education: Undergraduate learning in the arts and social sciencesBrendaJohnston, RosamondMitchell, FlorenceMyles, PeterFord, 2011London, Continuum Studies in Educational Research, Continuum £75, 247 pp. (including references and index) ISBN 978‐0‐8264‐4117‐1 (hbk)

Diversifying the Academy: How Conservative Academics Can Thrive in Liberal Academia

AbstractResearchers have long recognized that higher education is dominated by professors whose politics are well to the left of the American political center. The cause and implications of this ideological imbalance have been intensely debated since the 1960s. Although critics of higher education, such as David Horowitz, argue that the political imbalance in academia is largely the result of ideological discrimination, emerging research on the views, values, and experiences of the professoriate tells a more complex story. Despite the relatively small numbers in the academy, the findings suggest that many conservative scholars can succeed in a predominantly liberal environment. Drawing on the latest research, as well as their own personal experience, the authors outline steps that conservative faculty can take to avoid needless political conflict and work happily in a profession largely dominated by the Left.

The Case for the Traditional Classroom

Criticism of higher education and tight budgets have increased pressure on instructors to consider new pedagogical methods, including extensive use of classroom experiments and online or hybrid/online courses. This study analyzes the impact of different pedagogical methods in six sections of macroeconomic principles taught at Lander University during the 2011-2012 academic year. A traditional lecture/discussion control section is compared with three sections that use lecture with an extensive class experiment and two hybrid online sections that met only once per week during the regular semester. Controlling for student characteristics, students in experimental sections scored on average nearly five percent worse on the post-test, while those in the hybrid online sections scored nearly ten percent lower than the control students. These results indicate that instructors and administrators should be wary of unproven methods, especially online instruction.

Here's Looking at You: Transparency, Institutional Self-Presentation, and the Public Interest

Accountability figures prominently in the higher education policy discourse these days. Critics of higher education (for instance, members of the Spellings Commission) argue that colleges and universities need to be more “transparent” to justify support by taxpayers, payers of tuition, and other funders. To better inform prospective students and other stakeholders, we are being asked to go public about our programs, educational processes, and results.

Preface

Criticisms of higher education from the Spellings Commission’s A Test of Leadership to the National Academies’ Rising Above the Gathering Storm make it clear that the U.S. higher-education system is faced with daunting challenges and burdened by an array of weaknesses. In other words, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Unless higher-education institutions are willing to address the gap between historical deficiencies and current demands for more access, affordability, assessment, and accountability, they face further scrutiny and criticism. Alternatively, the Research Service of The Chronicle of Higher Education is equally forceful when, in its recent report titled The College of 2020, it calls for bold, groundbreaking reforms. The clear message of 2020 is that institutions need to look to the future, not the past. A focus on the inevitability of change, the need for adaptability, and the powerful infl uence of demographics are key considerations in the Chronicle report, which outlines what the college of the future will have to look like.

Learning Theoretical Concepts through Community Problem Solving: Service-Learning in Flight Safety Courses

Critics of higher education often criticize the chasm separating esoteric academic theory from the pragmatic knowledge required of students after graduation. Service-learning is presented as a catalyst for intrinsically motivating students to master course concepts. In service-learning, students collaborate with each other and with external stakeholders to fuse classroom theory with practical application in order to address real-world problems. Typological and historical overviews of service-learning are provided with special emphasis on how the systemic incorporation of service-learning throughout a degree program may increase student persistence by harmonizing academic processes with generational values. The use of service-learning in flight safety courses at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has not only improved safety at the campus and in the surrounding aviation community, it has enhanced the learning of technical concepts in students while greatly improving their soft skills.

Investigating Differences Between Low- and High-Stakes Test Performance on a General Education Exam

Investigating Differences Between Low- and High-Stakes Test Performance on a General Education Exam James S. Cole (bio) and Steven J. Osterlind (bio) There is increasing pressure for institutions of higher education in the United States to objectively document student learning outcomes (Lederman, 2007; U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Criticism of higher education is mounting, with the result being that educational institutions need to be more accountable for student learning on their campuses (Palomba & Banta, 1999). As a result, there is increased interest in the viability and use of standardized tests to assess student academic achievement in higher education. Currently many tests are used for the purpose of collegiate assessment, including Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), College Basic Academic Subjects Examination (College BASE), Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency, and the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP), published by the Council for Aid to Education, Assessment Resource Center, ACT, and ETS, respectively. These exams are typically administered to undergraduates as "low-stakes" tests to assess critical thinking, domain-specific content knowledge, writing, and other subject areas generally covered in a general education program. The use of standardized exams is often referred to as "direct assessment" of student learning and considered a powerful tool for assessing learning outcomes (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). [End Page 119] However, such exams often have a shortcoming that is not always recognized or acknowledged—that is, for students, the tests most often have no consequences. We term these "low-stakes" tests. Whereas these are low-stakes tests for the students, they are sometimes high stakes for institutions because accreditation and legislative funding can hinge on test score data. The purpose of this study was to investigate test performance differences among undergraduate students under low- and high-stakes test conditions. Test Consequences Throughout the school year, college students participate in a number of academic activities, some of which students enjoy and some of which they do not. One situation that many students may not enjoy is taking standardized achievement tests. This may be especially true for standardized exams that students are required to take but which have no meaningful outcome or consequence for the student (Cole & Bergin, 2005; Paris, Lawton, Turner, & Roth, 1991; Smith & Smith, 2004). These are often referred to as "low-stakes" exams, and the concern is that students in these testing situations may not be highly motivated to try their best (Smith & Smith, 2004; Sundre & Kitsantas, 2004; Wise & DeMars, 2005). Recognizing that test performance is a function of both knowledge and motivation, the possibility of low student motivation raises the concern of whether data collected are a valid measure of student achievement (Eklof, 2006; Wainer, 1993). As noted by Eklof (2006), "Ignoring the test-taking motivation component in low-stakes achievement testing could lead to a confounding of knowledge and motivation and thereby be a threat to the validity of the results" (p. 644). This concern has proven to be a major challenge for educational institutions that make decisions based on these test results. Institutions want to be confident that their students' test scores accurately represent (to the extent possible) student knowledge in the academic subject areas tested. According to Erwin and Wise (2002), "The challenge to motivate our students to give their best effort when there are few or no personal consequences is probably the most vexing assessment problem we face" (p. 71). Understanding the consequences of a test is the critical element in deciding whether the test is a low- or high-stakes test (DeCesare, 2002; Goertz & Duffy, 2003). We define a low-stakes exam as any exam that has no meaningful consequence to the test taker. Conversely, a high-stakes test has at least some academic or other meaningful consequence to the student. For example, at present twenty-two states have an exit exam for high school students (Kober, Zabala, Chudowsky, Chudowsky, Gayler, & McMurrer, 2006). These states require students to achieve a minimum cut score in order to graduate from high school. Clearly, these states are employing high-stakes testing for their high [End Page 120] school students: there is a clear and unambiguous consequence to students based on their test score. Another example is the...

Fear and Loathing in College Classrooms: A Survey of Political Science Department Chairs Regarding Political Bias

Some conservative critics of higher education have asserted that the current generation of American professors, especially those in the social sciences and humanities, are using their classrooms to advance a liberal political agenda. As evidence, they point to surveys of the political leanings of faculty and have accumulated examples of individual professors they allege to have made inflammatory statements veering from standards of academic objectivity and who punish undergraduates for expressing differing points of view. We surveyed political science department chairs at primarily undergraduate institutions to gather their perceptions about the scope of political bias in the classroom and the institutional procedures available to them to deal with student complaints about such practices. Our results indicate that chairs are indeed sensitive to concerns about faculty who cross the line from legitimate political expression to proselytizing in the classroom. By and large, however, they do not believe such activities are widespread and they believe that their institutions already have in place procedures that treat all parties fairly when political disagreements arise between students and faculty. The data show strong support for academic freedom across public, private, and religious institutions but reveal some differences in the social and political perspectives they promote.

Methods of Assessing Teaching: Investigating the how and why

Both supporters and critics of higher education have expressed concern about the decline of teaching, particularly of undergraduates (Bloom, 1987; Boyer, 1987; Boyer, 1990; and The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduate in the Research University, 1998). They have articulated that the or perish policies have lead to a proliferation of research to the detriment of and that the status of should be raised. In fact, Boyer (1990) found that a majority of faculty research and doctorate institutions believe that at their the pressure to publish reduces the of teaching (p. 55). Echoing these sentiments, The Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduate in the Research University (1998) concluded that the state of undergraduate education and in such a crisis, an issue of such magnitude and volatility that universities must galvanize themselves to respond (p. 37). While there may be a number of causes this situation, Keig and Waggoner (1995) suggest that one reason the decline of undergraduate is due to the manner in which is assessed: By all accounts, college is not as good as it could be. Teaching may be no better than it is . . . because academicians erroneously assume that time-honored practices of faculty evaluation play a significant role in improving instructional quality (p. 51). The authors conclude that most undergraduate institutions faculty evaluations are conducted primarily personnel decisions, not improving teaching. Arguing that the assessment of is often hastily conducted, Scriven (1980) suggests that the evaluation process [such a] . . . source of shame that it is hardly surprising that is rarely rewarded in an appropriate way (p. 7). Others have described the assessment of undergraduate as simplistic, primitive, without significant credibility, limited, sporadic, and inadequate (McKeachie and Kaplan, 1996; Scriven, 1980; and Soderberg, 1986). In order to raise the status of undergraduate and improve classroom instruction, Boyer (1990) contends that for to be considered equal to research, it must be vigorously assessed, using criteria that we recognize within the academy, not just in a single institution (p. 37). Although the call the improvement of the assessment of echoes throughout the academy, a preponderance of research focuses only on a narrow aspect of the assessment process; student evaluations and ratings of teachers. McKeachie and Kaplan (1996) argue that after fifty years of research and more than 2,000 journal articles, there's little reason to doubt that the procedure can provide valid and useful information both faculty members and administrators (p. 5). D'Apollonia and Abrami (1997) contend that this huge body of literature primarily has dealt with the psychometric properties of student ratings and practical guides faculty evaluation. They further argued that many researchers have concluded that the reliability and the validity of student ratings are generally good and that student ratings are the best, and often the only, method of providing objective evidence summative evaluation of instruction (p. 1198). However, a number of drawbacks and controversies persist with regard to student evaluations of teachers. These include the influence of lenient grading on student ratings, students' conceptualization of effective teaching, the potential negative effect of low ratings on teacher motivation, the assumption that student ratings are correlated with learning, and the lack of sophistication of personnel committees who use student ratings (Greenwald and Gillmore, 1997; McKeachie, 1997; and McKeachie and Kaplan, 1996). A burgeoning area of discussion related to the assessment of is the use of portfolios faculty reviews (Cohen, 1997). …