1st Edition

The Impact of College on Students

By Kenneth A. Feldman Copyright 1994
    502 Pages
    by Routledge

    474 Pages
    by Routledge

    In this landmark work, Kenneth Feldman and Theodore Newcomb review and synthesize the findings of more than 1,500 studies conducted over four decades on the subject. Writing in 1991, Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini maintained that The Impact of College on Students not only provided the first comprehensive conceptual map of generally uncharted terrain, but also generated a number of major hypotheses about how college influences students. They also noted that Feldman and Newcombe helped to stimulate a torrent of studies on the characteristics of collegiate institutions and how students change and benefit during and after their college years from college attendance. The Impact of College on Students is now a standard text in graduate courses as well as a standard and frequently cited reference for scholars, students, and administrators of higher education. Much of what we understand about the developmental influence of college is based on this work.

    TRANSACTION INTRODUCTION, PREFACE, 1: THE IMPACT OF COLLEGE: PROLOGUE, 2: CHANGE AND STABILITY DURING COLLEGE, 3: PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION, 4: THE SEQUENCE OF EXPERIENCES, 5: THE DIVERSE AMERICAN COLLEGE, 6: THE DIVERSITY OF MAJOR FIELDS, 7: IMPACTS OF RESIDENCE GROUPINGS, 8: STUDENT CULTURE AND FACULTY, 9: BACKGROUND, PERSONALITY, AND COLLEGE IMPACTS, 10: PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE AFTER COLLEGE, 11: THE IMPACT OF COLLEGE: EPILOGUE, APPENDIX A: Sample Items From the Activities Index and the College Characteristics Index, APPENDIX B: Sample Items From the College and University Environment Scales, APPENDIX C: Difficulties in Inferring Changes in “Maturity” From Changes in Scores on Personality Tests, APPENDIX D: Illustrative Data for Some Issues Raised in Chapter Three, APPENDIX E: The Use of the College Characteristics Index and the College and University Environment Scales, APPENDIX F: Problems in Adjusting for Student Inputs When Explaining Student Outcomes, APPENDIX G: Problems of Generalizing About Distinctive Characteristics of Students in Different Curricula, APPENDIX H: Interpretive Difficulties Regarding Data on Accentuation of Initial Major-Field Differences, APPENDIX I: Types of Students and Student Cultures, REFERENCES, NAME INDEX, SUBJECT INDEX

    Biography

    Kenneth A. Feldman is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His work has appeared in a wide array of professional literature including American Educational Research Journal, Sociology of Education, American Sociological Review, Journal of Social Psychology, and many articles in Research in Higher Education. Theodore M Newcomb was, before his death, a professor of sociology and psychology at the University of Michigan. He published widely in areas of personality and attitude change, group membership and attitude formation, communication behavior, interpersonal attraction, and higher education.