[lbo-talk] How Much Do College Students Learn, and Study?

[c b]

Isn't there something of a contradiction between developing ability to
think rigorously (vigorously ?) and developing critical thinking
skills ? Rigor requires strict adherence to complex thoughts of
others, and it is difficult simultaneously be critical of what one
develops the ability to strictly adhere to.  The enthusiasm for ideas
necessary to discipline oneself to handle them rigorously is
undermined by thinking about the same ideas critically.

It is difficult to read more than forty pages of something in a state
of mind that is highly critical of what one is reading.

Charles

Doug Henwood

, Wojtek S wrote:

In the book, and in an accompanying study being released Tuesday, the
authors followed more than 2,300 undergraduates at two dozen
universities, and concluded that 45 percent “demonstrated no
significant gains in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and
written communications during the first two years of college.”


> Not much, it seems.

<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/01/18/study_finds_large_numbers_of_college_students_don_t_learn_much>

The main culprit for lack of academic progress of students, according
to the authors, is a lack of rigor. They review data from student
surveys to show, for example, that 32 percent of students each
semester do not take any courses with more than 40 pages of reading
assigned a week, and that half don't take a single course in which
they must write more than 20 pages over the course of a semester.
Further, the authors note that students spend, on average, only about
12-14 hours a week studying, and that much of this time is studying in
groups.

The research then goes on to find a direct relationship between rigor
and gains in learning: