In higher education, many high-enrollment introductory courses have evolved into "gatekeeper" courses due to their high failure rates. These courses prevent many students from attaining their educational goals and often become graduation roadblocks. At the authors' home institution, general chemistry has become a gatekeeper course in which…

Speaking about "the student experience" has become common-place in higher education and the phrase has acquired the aura of a sacred utterance in UK higher education policy over the last decade. A critical discourse analysis of selected higher education policy texts reveals what "the student experience" has come to signify, and…

The current concern about low levels of English proficiency among international students who graduate from degree courses--that students' English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience--reflects negatively on the quality of Australian higher education and its graduates. More careful selection of students…

Colleges, once seen as beacons of egalitarian hope, are becoming bastions of wealth and privilege that perpetuate inequality. The chance of a low-income child obtaining a bachelor's degree has not budged in three decades: Just 6 percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor's degree by age 24 in 1970, and in 2002 still only…

One university's Honors program approach to career counseling is discussed. Effects of conflict between students' lifelong dreams and their aptitudes and academic achievements is discussed with its corresponding depression, disorientation, and frequent withdrawal from school. A policy of realistic but sympathetic early assessment and consideration…

Test scores of education majors have always been lower than those of other majors. The decline in scholastic aptitude of prospective teachers is only of consequence if it is related to the mastery of professional skills. Schools of education should recruit high-aptitude students and make them aware of career options in education. (JN)

Since 1973, the types of questions used on the Scholastic Aptitude Test have been periodically appraised for their appropriateness for different groups. The procedures used in the test development process to ensure appropriateness and approaches used in the statistical analysis to evaluate test fairness are described. (MLW)

The Johns Hopkins University program to identify prodigies in mathematics is reviewed. The Advanced Placement Program of the College Board is seen as a means for intellectually highly able youths to move ahead fast in a greatly enriched fashion and earn college credit. (MLW)

This article draws a link between student development concepts and the institutional policies colleges formulate and implement. This article offers seven observations intended to guide institutional policymakers in light of the propositions about development identified by Strange (1994). (67 references) (Author/RB)

Information is presented on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) performance of Maryland high school seniors who graduated in 1983, and characteristics of the students are examined. Of the 29,755 Maryland students who took the SAT in 1983, 18 percent were black, 20 percent attended nonpublic schools, and 53 percent were females. Maryland seniors…

The student teaching experience at Queens College is a cooperative venture between university supervisors, cooperating teachers, administrators, and student teachers. In an effort to evaluate and improve this performance based program, the education department surveyed cooperating teachers. Survey results indicate that the teachers were interested…

More attention should be paid to four issues during the massification of Chinese higher education: (1) how to understand the prime cause of the expansion of higher education; (2) how to reinforce liberal education; (3) how to balance the relationship between equality and excellence; and (4) how to harmonize the relationship between the university,…

Approximately one in every three students entering higher education in South Africa will have dropped out by the end of their first year of study. Under-preparedness has repeatedly been cited as one of the most common causes, with academics suggesting that many students lack the reading and writing skills they need to be successful at university.…

The history of military manpower policy and college student deferment is reviewed, with attention to the Selective Service College Qualification Test (SSCQT). By passage of the Selective Service Act of 1948, Congress recognized the need to maintain an adequate number of scientific, professional, and specialized personnel in both civilian and…

This paper contrasts two types of "autodidact" located in the UK in different historical periods, which utilised different learning/research technologies to different ends. From the 1920s to the 1960s some working-class activists committed to the Communist Party of Great Britain became "educated" in Marxism (and more) through…