Involvement in Learning revisited: Lessons we have learned

Journal of College Student Development, Sep/Oct 1999 by Astin, Alexander W

Given the rapidly changing political and economic circumstances of the past decade, we might expect a report that is now more than 1 l years old to be somewhat out of date. However, with a few minor exceptions, the recommendations that were set forth in Involvement in Learning are just as relevant today as they were when they were first proposed by our Study Group in 1984. Indeed, much of the research that has been done since the report was issued not only has reinforced many of its recommendations but also has allowed us to elaborate on the recommendations in much more specific ways. In this essay I would like to review some of this research and comment on its special relevance for professionals in the field of student affairs. In the process I would also like to say a few things about another more recent report in which I was involved, the Student Learning Imperative which was released in 1994 by the American College Personnel Association (ACPA).

To understand the interconnections among Involvement in Learning, the Student Learning Imperative, and our most recent research on student development, it is useful to keep in mind that each of these efforts is rooted in deeply held values. By focusing on these value issues, I will try to show how student affairs professionals can utilize our most recent research to help realize the full potential of the recommendations set forth in the two national reports.

INVOLVEMENT IN LEARNING

There are three sections of Involvement in Learning that seem to be most germane to the topic of this special issue of JCSD: "Shared Values" (pp. 2-4), the "Conditions of Excellence in Undergraduate Education" (pp. 15-22), and the "Recommendations" which make of the bulk of the report (pp. 23-81).

Shared Values

To understand the Study Group's shared values, it is useful to know the process that we followed in producing this report. Unlike many national commissions, our group did not meet for a few times to discuss drafts produced by staff; on the contrary, we met for many hours on several different occasions and actually wrote the report ourselves. After perhaps 40 to 50 hours of intense meetings often characterized by animated arguments and discussions, we came to realize that it would be very difficult to write a report that we could all endorse unless we could first define a common value perspective. The basic values on which we finally agreed might be characterized as "bullish." Borrowing a concept long promoted by one member of our group, Howard Bowen, we argued that "the United States must become a nation of educated people" (Study Group, 1984, p. 2). We asserted that to achieve this goal, the breadth and depth of American higher education needed to be expanded so that (a) larger proportions of the population would avail themselves of higher education and (b) larger proportions would complete their degree programs. In short, we argued that despite the many strengths of its higher education system, the United States was still a nation of "undereducated" people. Finally, we maintained that the quality of institutional performance should be judged ultimately in terms of how effectively students were educated, and that all institutions should employ publicly accountable assessment methods for demonstrating their effectiveness.

Although we argued that institutions needed to focus more on student outcomes, we avoided specifying what any of these outcomes should be, arguing instead that this task should be left largely to the individual institution. In retrospect, I think this was a mistake. If we had been more forthcoming about our own values with respect to some of the most important student outcomes, we certainly would have generated more controversy, but I think the controversy would have been healthy. More specifically, I wish we had spoken more directly about the importance of socalled affective outcomes such as self-understanding, tolerance, honesty, citizenship, and social responsibility.

If we stop for a moment to consider what the most critical problems of our society really are, they are at least as "affective" as they are "cognitive": racial tension, crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, school dropouts, disengagement from politics, and a growing unwillingness among the public to support governmental efforts to alleviate some of these problems. Certainly our colleges and universities bear some of the responsibility for preparing young people to deal constructively with such problems.

The issue of outcomes, of course, is ultimately a value question. What are the needs of our society and our students? What are the most desirable student qualities that we seek to develop? The problem with leaving such matters undiscussed is that academics, left to their own devices, will usually take refuge in "cognitive" outcomes like knowledge, cognitive skill, critical thinking, and so on. Thus, even though colleges and universities are social institutions committed to serving the needs of the society, and even though the charters and mission statements of most institutions mention outcomes such as citizenship, character, and social responsibility, academics-especially faculty-tend to limit their conception of "outcomes" to the traditional cognitive side.