Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS), this study examined the college experiences and cognitive outcomes of non-native English speaking (NNES) students. After an extensive control of precollege and college level influences, results indicate that NNES students had a lower level of participation in collaborative…

Academic rigor has long been considered important for students' learning and development in higher education. However, findings about students' outcomes from previous studies of rigor are mixed, in part because of varying conceptions of what constitutes rigor. In quantitative research, rigor is often operationalized in one of two ways: through…

While racial inequalities in college entry and completion are well documented, much less is known about racial disparities in the development of general collegiate skills, such as critical thinking. Using data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, we find substantial inequality in the development of critical thinking skills…

While all students encounter difficulties in transitioning to college, the experience is more pronounced for first-generation college students (Terenzini, Springer, Yaeger, Pascarella, & Nora, 1996). Definitions of "first-generation college student" differ across scholarly studies. Understanding this population's gains in critical…

For this study we considered the influence of binge drinking behavior in college on students' critical thinking gains. Findings suggest that binge drinking has a negative influence on students' critical thinking gains over 4 years of college and that this effect was driven by students with the lowest levels of precollege critical thinking. In both…

The benefits of student engagement in diversity experiences on a range of college outcomes have been well documented. However, the potential influence of involvement in diversity experiences during college on the cognitive and intellectual outcomes of post-secondary education is only beginning to be understood. Gurin et al. (2002) made a…

Although a growing body of research has demonstrated the value of interacting with diverse peers, a number of questions remain about the relationship between the quality of students' diversity interactions and their cognitive development. In a longitudinal study following 3 cohorts of students from entry into college through the end of their 4th…

This paper synthesizes research from the Wabash National Study on Liberal Arts Education, the National Study on Student Learning, and the Research on Iowa Student Experiences study that estimates the influence of certain effective instructional practices on a range of student outcomes. Student perceptions of two specific teacher…

This study analyzes longitudinal data from 17 four-year institutions in the United States to determine how the distinctive instructional and learning environment of American liberal arts colleges accounts for the positive impact of liberal arts college attendance on four-year growth in critical thinking skills and need for cognition. We find that,…

This study utilized data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education to test the robustness of research conducted by Pascarella et al. ("J Coll Stud Dev" 37:7-19, 1996) that explored the relationship between student perceptions of exposure to organized and clear instruction and growth in critical thinking skills among…

This study estimates the effects of a deep approaches to learning scale and its subscales on measures of students' critical thinking, need for cognition, and positive attitudes toward literacy, controlling for pre-college scores for the outcomes and other covariates. Results suggest reflection is critical to making gains across the outcomes.

In this study the authors analyze longitudinal student survey data from the 17-institution Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS) to determine the extent that the influence of overall exposure to clear and organized instruction on four-year growth in two measures of cognitive development is mediated by student use of deep approaches…

We use a longitudinal national dataset to explore the direct and conditional effects of fraternity/sorority membership on students' educational outcomes in the 4th year of college. Controlling for a variety of potentially confounding variables, including pretest measures of the outcomes, we find no direct effect of fraternity/sorority membership…

The publication of Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's influential new book, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," the findings of which were summarized in an article by the same authors in the March/April "Change," has caused a national furor centering around their multi-institutional findings that the…

Funded by the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts (CILA) at Wabash College, the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education (WNS) is a multi-institution, multi-year, longitudinal study designed to identify the academic and non-academic collegiate experiences that foster liberal learning. This article describes how the study was done and…