By Howard Gardner Once I had begun to write about the varieties of human...
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In a Word: The Adjective Question
by Sophie Blumert If you could describe the students at your school in one word… Sometimes, in an hour-long discussion or interview, a single word can be powerful—one word can signal a lot about one’s perspective. In our large, national study of higher education we asked participants what we thought of as a warm-up question: […]
College Courses: Time Well Spent, or a Waste of Time?
by Sophie Blumert “Tell us about the courses you’ve taken: which ones were time well spent, and which ones were a waste of time?” In our national study of higher education, we asked nearly 1000 students this very question. This question helped us to gain concrete information about courses and, at the same time, proved […]
The Power, Pitfalls, and Practice of Online Higher Education
by Christina Smiraglia Colleges have debated and experimented with online education for more than a decade, but digital approaches have recently come to the fore given the necessary physical distancing measures in place across much of the U.S. – and other countries – in the wake of COVID-19. In our national study of American higher […]
“If You Were the Czar…”: Answers from College Stakeholders
by Christina Smiraglia If you were the czar—a figure with absolute power—what changes would you make to your college’s academic program? This weighty question was a standard part of the interview protocol for the approximately 2000 participants—first-year and graduating students, faculty, administrators, parents, and alumni—in our study of American higher education. Some immediately said that […]
The Book Question: Surprises and Meanings
by Sophie Blumert What do Dr. Seuss, Harper Lee, and Plato have in common? These authors, though wildly different from each other, were most frequently mentioned when we asked participants to recommend books and to explain their choice. The answers yielded some of the most varied—and confusing—data from every constituency group in our study. While […]
