During the past 50 years, the field of higher education has experienced growth, maturation, and specialization, coinciding with an almost exponential increase in the number of higher education journals. The proliferation of journals has led to an increased focus on journal status by members of the field. Not surprisingly, an informal journal caste…

This research identifies 22 fields that declined in absolute numbers and/or prevalence over a 35-year period. Most were basic fields in the arts and sciences. Steep declines were evident only in a few fields, notably European languages and literatures. Larger, higher status, and historically liberal arts oriented institutions were less likely to…

Discusses psychologists' contributions to higher education research, particularly in the areas of teaching and learning. Explores epistemological characteristics of psychological knowledge, the nature of research psychology, and how these characteristics relate to the intellectual and methodological traditions of psychology as a discipline.…

Higher education's contemporary emergence as a scholarly specialty is compared with the development of some other specialities--economics, political science, sociology. An interpretation of how fields become disciplines is offered and some parallels between the social sciences at the turn of the century and higher education today are explored.…

A study of citation patterns looked at 569 articles in 3 higher education journals over a period of 6 years. It examined the forms and ages of materials cited and the most frequently cited items and individuals. Some conclusions are drawn, and further research of the communication process is recommended. (MSE)

Based on a review of literature (from 1951-91) on higher education and a study of corporate ethical behavior, it is concluded that the university lacks information on its own ethical behavior. Increased institutional research on moral behavior, explicit standards, and university ethics committees to induce morally sensitive behavior are…

Proposes that higher education scholars distinguish among professional subjects taught to undergraduates as they do among traditional disciplines. Other distinctions may be more meaningful than the research-based dimensions used in the popular Biglan classification. A framework for differentiating collegiate career fields is proposed, evidence…

The development and contributions of Professor Ruth Eckert are presented in this autobiographical essay. Focus is on higher education as a field of graduate study and changes in higher education throughout this century. The author's experiences are set in the context of wider happenings in higher education. (Author/JMD)

In Western Europe, the advent of higher education as a self-sustaining field of research began two decades ago. The place of higher education research in academia, government policy formulation, and the type of inquiry undertaken in Sweden in comparison with counterparts in France and Britain are examined. (Author/MLW)

It is suggested that the value of education is due to student life more than to college instruction. Samplings of studies of college life are delineated for the validity of student traditions as a field of research, and the aid of sociologists and anthropologists is solicited. (Article originally published in 1935.) (AF)