Substantive growth and innovative organization: New categories for higher education research

The existing international literature on higher education centers on the transition from elite to mass higher education, the changing relationship between governments and universities, and the differentiation of the institutional fabric of national systems. These important institutionalized concerns lead to an unbalanced research agenda if other basic features are not pursued. Two additional fundamental features need expanded attention: substantive academic growth, with its roots in the research imperative and the dynamics of disciplines; and innovative university organization, a sharply growing concern among practitioners as universities seek greater capacity to change.Proliferating at a rapid rate, modern academic knowledge changes fields of study from within, alters universities from the bottom-up, and increases the benefits and costs of decisions on the inclusion and exclusion of various specialties. The long-term trend from simple to complex knowledge, arguably more important than the trend from elite to mass higher education, forces universities to position themselves between knowledge expansion and student expansion, with emphasis increasingly placed on the knowledge dimension. Innovative universities explore new ways of organizing knowledge and of more effectively exploiting the fields in which they are already engaged. Greater awareness of new means of knowledge organization will help universities make wiser choices in the twenty-first century.     

Effects of presentation modes,explicitness, and student aptitudes on learning

Research on the relationship between learner aptitudes and presentation modes has taken several approaches — and raised a number of questions. This study sought to clarify the relationships between modes of presentation (verbal vs. spatial), explicitness of presentation (little or much), and student aptitudes (verbal vs. spatial). Explicit guidance clearly was helpful in teaching the fourth-grade subjects, regardless of type of aptitude, how to compute surface areas of two- and three-dimensional objects. The relationship between mode of presentation and aptitude was less clear. The authors discuss their findings at length and suggest several areas for future aptitude-treatment-interaction research.     

Systemizing and the gender gap: examining academic achievement and perseverance in STEM

For years, a popular explanation for women choosing to abandon studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has been their lack of aptitude. This study challenged that notion by integrating theories of cognitive style, academic emotion, self-efficacy, and motivation to explain students’ academic achievement and perseverance in STEM when transitioning to college. A sample of 1597 high school and junior college students participated. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were first conducted to validate a reduced version of the cognitive style questionnaire. Structural equation modeling revealed that the cognitive style known as systemizing indirectly predicted STEM achievement and persistence by way of intrinsic motivation, learning anxiety, and self-efficacy, providing a new perspective for re-examining the gender gap in STEM.

     

Supporting Transgender College Students: Implications for Clinical Intervention and Campus Prevention

This study examines the experiences of transgender college students in coping with stress in comparison to their cisgender peers. Undergraduate and graduate students from 73 colleges, totaling 26,292 participants, of which 47 identified as transgender completed an online survey. Transgender students reported greater exposure to trauma and higher rates of suicidal experiences, as well as different precipitants to reported stressful periods and sources of support than their cisgender peers. Implications for individual and group counseling as well as outreach and prevention to better support transgender students are explored.