PIECING TOGETHER THE STUDENT SUCCESS PUZZLE: RESEARCH, PROPOSITIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Abstract

Fast growing of colleges and universities, tremendous increasing interest in earning bachelor's degree, and complexity problems related to student enrolment and persistence, a single study does not enough effectively explain those problems in the increasingly complex social, economical and cultural issues.Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, Hayek wrote the book based on the extensive literature reviews, especially in the last fifteen years, relating to policies, program, and practices in higher education related to student success.This book provides a wide range of research findings on policies, programs and practices of post secondary education and can be guidance to the college and university management and academic communities in relation to students' success, and useful information for Federal, State and local governments.The book consists of seven chapters that can be categorized into three major sections focusing on students (conceptual, theoretical perspectives, foundation and student behaviors related to students success), institution conditions, and propositions and recommendations.The book begins with the discussion of the increasing demand of higher education on one hand and low enrolment and achievement of low income and minority students on the other hand.Student's preparation before entering college and rising of college cost are the major reasons that hamper them to enroll and success in college.Through reviewing many studies, Kuh et al. try to find the answers of some questions related to students' characteristics, what factors contribute to students' success and what intervention should be taken to help students' preparation before enrollment and after entering college, and to what groups of students the interventions need to be focused.Following the introduction, Kuh et al. discuss definition and conceptual frame work of students success and propose many indicators related to student success.For the purpose of the report, Kuh et al. define students' success as academic achievement; engagement in educationally purposeful activities; satisfaction; acquisition of desired knowledge, skill, and competencies; persistence; and attainment of educational objectives (p.10).In the following chapter, Kuh et al. discuss major theoretical perspectives on students' success in college such as sociological, organizational, psychological, cultural, and economic perspectives.Even though no one theoretical perspective can adequately account for all the factors that influence student success in college, Kuh et al. found that students integration is the major factor that relate to students success.Student persistence is a function of dynamic relationships between individual and other actors in the college and the home community.Students most likely to persist are those whose values, norms, and behaviors are already congruent with dominant pattern on campus (p.15).Difficulties in adapting new social and academic environment found by certain groups of students, such as racial minority and other low income students influence their success in college.The book then discusses the broader aspects of students' background characteristics, pre college experiences, and enrolment pattern in relation to student success in college.There is a gap of educational level between whites and other racial and ethnic populations (Blacks and Latinos) and

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 191 citations exist upstream.