Throughout the years, general education (GE) has failed to see the value in visual arts programs in its curriculum across colleges in universities in the US. Even while creative careers continue to expand, and studies have shown the significance of the visual arts, art courses are still questioned as to their value and importance within the GE…

This article argues that three dimensions of relevance can be identified for the academic study of religion as it is taught at the university: (1) Foundations; (2) General Education; and (3) Application. The analytical distinction of these dimensions also reveals that they are inextricably linked and co-dependent. This model may help to sort out…

Faculty at five universities, three public and two private, participated in this cross-sectional, comparative study. In addition to determining the overall faculty perception of the general education curriculum (GEC), this research determined whether there were statistically significant differences in faculty perceptions of the GEC comparing five…

The surest way to improve the quality of education for the greatest number of students is through general education, as all students must complete their institution's general education requirements. Unfortunately, the general education programs at too many institutions are poorly designed and fail to give students a coherent grounding in essential…

This qualitative inquiry examines the tensions that general education colleges face while initiating reform in China, how students characterize these tensions, and what conditions account for the tensions. The views of 18 college students were documented through individual semi-structured interviews to uncover the themes related to the tensions,…

This study examined the effect of specialized orientation courses on community college student academic achievement and retention. The study utilized a quantitative design and compared the outcomes of specialized orientation courses to a more generalized orientation course. Due to the lack of previous research, there was little to suggest either a…

In the 3 years prior to Harry Truman's establishment of the President's Commission on Higher Education in 1946, the Association of American Colleges (AAC), the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and Harvard University all released reports on the relationship of general or liberal education to the political order. This historiographical…

This book argues that the liberal arts and sciences (LAS) model of education can inspire reform across higher education to help students acquire crucial civic virtues. Based on interviews with 59 students from LAS programmes across Europe, the book posits that LAS education can develop a range of citizenship skills that are central to the…

Higher education has often been accused of its anti-social character, represented by the metaphor of the 'ivory tower'. However, the idea of the pursuit of knowledge per se, which is associated with the ivory tower, has not been widely recognized as a public ideal of higher education. In this study, by drawing on the 20th-century British…

While the significant impact of faculty feedback on student learning is well recognized, the intricate link between the quality of faculty feedback and students' deep approaches to learning, especially in the context of general education, has yet to be clarified. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this study examined the relationship between…

Teaching is a complex activity that demands paying attention to diverse components and relationships that affect the learning process, and acting with intentionality to build and nurture those connections. In this qualitative research study, we proposed and used an intentional-relational framework to explore differences in the relationships that…

Large-scale educational assessments are sometimes considered low-stakes, increasing the possibility of confounding true performance level with low motivation. These concerns are amplified in remote testing conditions. To remove the effects of low effort levels in responses observed in remote low-stakes testing, several motivation filtering methods…

Because strong oral communication skills have well-known academic, social, and professional benefits, they are increasingly targeted and reinforced throughout general education programs in higher education. In these efforts, public speaking assignments most often ask students to discuss information they have previously written about (e.g., theses…

This mixed-methods study utilized qualitative analysis and cross-tabulation, to identify differences in proportions between pre- and post-lesson plans for 16 secondary preservice general educators after having received instruction on UDL. Participants' lesson plans were qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated for the presence of UDL principles…

Effective science instruction and associated student learning is reliant upon a strong foundation of teacher content knowledge. This study of the "Praxis?" General Science Content Knowledge Test from May 2006 to June 2016 investigates content knowledge of 28,688 general science teacher candidates. Examinees performed well on "Life…