Just finished reading this. It is a quite detailed and ambitious research report trying to establish that US university students are NOT learning what they need to learn, namely the ability to read, think, and write critically and analytically at an advanced level. This claim is based on a standardized test called the CLA, or Collegiate Learning Assessment, which has questions like this (click). According to results of the CLA, many college students don't improve in those key abilities from their 1st year to their 2nd or 4th year.
The open ended writing prompts like these seem to assess very practical abilities, and I am happy to see that these are quite similar to the liberal arts core learning that we emphasize in the ELP at ICU where I work.
The following sample question is from this paper on the CLA "Facts and Fantasies"
Figure 3: Example of a 30-Minute Break-An-Argument Prompt
The University of Claria is generally considered one of the best universities in the
world because of its instructors’ reputation, which is based primarily on the
extensive research and publishing record of certain faculty members. In addition,
several faculty members are internationally renowned as leaders in their fields. For
example, many of the English Department’s faculty members are regularly invited
to teach at universities in other countries. Furthermore, two recent graduates of the physics department have gone on to become candidates for the Nobel Prize in
Physics. And 75 percent of the students are able to find employment after
graduating. Therefore, because of the reputation of its faculty, the University of
Claria should be the obvious choice for anyone seeking a quality education.
The University of Claria is generally considered one of the best universities in the
world because of its instructors’ reputation, which is based primarily on the
extensive research and publishing record of certain faculty members. In addition,
several faculty members are internationally renowned as leaders in their fields. For
example, many of the English Department’s faculty members are regularly invited
to teach at universities in other countries. Furthermore, two recent graduates of the physics department have gone on to become candidates for the Nobel Prize in
Physics. And 75 percent of the students are able to find employment after
graduating. Therefore, because of the reputation of its faculty, the University of
Claria should be the obvious choice for anyone seeking a quality education.
Hopefully, my ICU students will be able to take this argument apart and critique it successfully in an organized English paragraph that points out the main weaknesses of the claim "obvious choice".
Basically, the book Academically Adrift is a call to universities to boost the quality of their undergraduate programs, especially in terms of challenging students to read, think, and write critically. Professors and professors in training need to learn how to challenge students to engage in rigorous learning, and need to be given support and evaluation systems that encourage them to facilitate learning in an effective way.
I support this. I remember how my University of Washington undergraduate program (and graduate program, actually) rarely ever included any requirement for revising and improving a research paper. I rarely ever got more than a grade and a one line comment such as "Nicely researched but argument needs development. B+" Being forced to write papers is good, but formative feedback is most likely critical to any substantial improvement in writing skills. I had one professor, a young guy teaching me applied linguistics, who tore up a paper I wrote and asked me to revise it prior to a second deadline. I really enjoyed that process and learned a lot.
US universities will benefit from having more curriculum design with tasks that force the young writer to re-think and re-articulate the argument, and the same goes for Japanese universities, where the "academically adrift" situation is actually much, much worse.
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