What Matters in College?: Four Critical Years Revisited
What is the impact of college attendance on students' personal, social, academic, and vocational development? Do different types of colleges produce different outcomes? How important is the curriculum as opposed to the student peer group and the faculty? How are students affected by the quality and quantity of their personal involvement in the academic and extracurricular life of the institution? In 1977, Alexander Astin attempted to answer these and other key questions in Four Critical...
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From the author of Four Critical Years—a book the Journal of Higher Education called the most cited work in higher education literature—What Matters in College? presents the definitive study of how students change and develop in college and how colleges can enhance that development. Based on a study of more than 20,000 students, 25,000 faculty members, and 200 institutions, the book shows how academic programs, faculty, student peer groups, and other variables affect students' college experiences. Booknews Addresses a wide range of issues pertaining to traditional-age college undergraduates who enter college soon after completing high school, showing how cognitive and affective outcomes are affected by student peer group experiences and by the faculty's values, interests, and styles of teaching. Intended primarily for faculty, administrators, and policy makers. Other than making evident the wide variety of factors influencing student success, the abundance of data will probably not be helpful to people who are trying to choose a college. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
PrefaceThe Author1Studying College Impact12Environmental Variables323Assessing Environmental Effects: A Prototypical Example834Personality and Self-Concept1055Attitudes, Values, and Beliefs1416Patterns of Behavior1657Academic and Cognitive Development1868Career Development2459Satisfaction with the College Environment27310Summary of Environmental Effects31211Effects of Involvement36512Implications for Educational Theory and Practice396Resource A: Multiple Correlations at Selected Steps438Resource B: Longitudinal Changes in the Weighted and Unweighted Samples442References447Index457
