ERIC Number: ED612730
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2021-May
Pages: 37
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Ensuring a More Equitable Future: The Role of Colleges in Educating Students to Become Change Agents
Elliott, Kayla C.; Jones, Tiffany
Postsecondary Value Commission
Currently, to prepare students, colleges and universities use strategies like diversity courses, hiring diverse faculty, tracking who gets access to which academic programs by race/ethnicity, and equipping faculty to re-design curricula and practices that reflect today's diverse students. Strategies for measuring higher education's success at creating a healthy racial climate and educating students on issues of race/ethnicity include curricula/syllabi reviews, climate surveys (i.e. Higher Education Research Institute's (HERI) Diverse Learning Environments (DLE) Survey, etc.), surveys of student engagement (i.e. National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE), etc.), surveys of academic self-concept and interactions with mentorship and faculty, and studies on the impact of diversity courses. However, existing surveys are not yet sufficient to measure institutional success in this arena in a comprehensive way. Most currently available surveys address students' experiences with racial and social justice without assessing growth and learning over time. For example, existing survey items measure how often institutions expose students to experiences that encourage social justice. However, too few address how well these experiences prepare students to identify and combat injustice. These surveys measure the process of social justice preparation in higher education, but not the outcomes of social justice preparation in higher education. This paper summarizes the surveys that exist, makes recommendations for improved measurement tools, and explores the possibility of metrics that robustly measure institutional effectiveness at preparing students for justice.
Descriptors: College Students, College Role, Change Agents, Social Justice, Outcome Measures, Student Surveys, Diversity (Institutional), College Environment, Inclusion, Learner Engagement, National Surveys, Test Construction
Postsecondary Value Commission. Available from: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. e-mail: ValueCommission@IHEP.org; Website: https://www.postsecondaryvalue.org/
Publication Type: Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Postsecondary Value Commission
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: National Survey of Student Engagement
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A