''Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses'' is a
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...
written by
Richard Arum
Richard Arum (born 1963) is an American sociologist of education and stratification, best known for his research on student learning, school discipline, race, and inequality in K-12 and higher education.
Arum has a B.A. in Political Science fro ...
and Josipa Roksa, published by the
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style' ...
in January 2011.
The book examines the current state of
higher education in the United States
Higher education in the United States is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. Higher education is also referred as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education. It covers stages 5 to 8 ...
. The book and its findings received extensive national media coverage and sparked a debate about what undergraduate students learn once they get into college.
The research draws on transcript data, the
Collegiate Learning Assessment
The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) is a standardized testing initiative in United States higher educational evaluation and assessment. It uses a "value-added" outcome model to examine a college or university's contribution to student learni ...
, and survey responses from more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions in their first semester and again at the end of their second year. The analysis reveals that 45 percent of these students demonstrated no significant improvement in a range of skills—including
critical thinking
Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased ana ...
, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college.
See also
*''
In the Basement of the Ivory Tower''
*''
Real Education
''Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality'' is a 2008 book by Charles Murray. He wrote the book to challenge the "Educational romanticism hichasks too much from students at the bottom of the intellectual p ...
''
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UnCollege
Reviews
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The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
References
Books about education
University of Chicago Press books
2011 non-fiction books
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