How much can you expect to learn in college?
We’re not interested in subject-matter-specific learning, since that depends on your choice of major. Instead, we want to know how much your studies will improve you as a person: Your ability to think critically, master new concepts quickly, express yourself persuasively, etc. Using the terms we developed on the Self-Improvement page, we’re interested in how much type 3 learning occurs in college.
A pair of academic researchers set out to answer this question in their 2011 book, Academically Adrift. Their approach* was simple: They looked at how well college students did on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (a test of critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and writing abilities) at the beginning of their freshman year and at the end of their sophomore year. For each individual student, they compared the freshman score with the sophomore score. Any change in score was considered to be how much that student had learned in the first two years of college. Although there are a few limitations to these results—such as the absence of a control group; the lack of focus on how college major (and reason for college) affects learning; and the assumption that the students put forth their best effort on a test with no personal consequences—the study is considered to be one of the best in the field.
Disconcertingly, the results were not good. The authors found little-or-no improvement had occurred during the first two years of college:
We observe no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills for at least 45 percent of the students in our study. An astounding proportion of students are progressing through higher education today without measurable gains in general skills as assessed by the [Collegiate Learning Assessment]. While they may be acquiring subject-specific knowledge or greater self-awareness on their journeys through college, many students are not improving their skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing.
Looking at the student body as a whole, the authors concluded:
Freshmen who enter higher education at the 50th percentile would reach a level equivalent to the 57th percentile of an incoming freshman class by the end of their sophomore year.
So, the results look pretty bleak. Don’t get bummed out, though, because these results come with an important qualification: This is the average result for all the students in the study. Some students learned more than average, some less. The truth is many students don’t put in the effort required to learn, and that’s their choice. Some people focus on other productive uses of their time (e.g., working on research projects, networking with future employers) and some people focus on enjoying college while it lasts (e.g., parties). Either way, their learning results aren’t necessarily representative of your potential learning; you can learn more if you’re willing to put in the effort.
So, let’s spend a few minutes on that: How can you make sure you’ll learn more than average in college?
How to Learn More Than Average
Academically Adrift can help us with this question, too. The authors combined the Collegiate Learning Assessment results with students’ transcript records and self-reported social/educational background. By looking for associations between learning and factors within a student’s control, they came up with three recommendations for learning more in college: choose rigorous coursework; spend a lot of time studying alone; and engage with faculty often, especially in 1-on-1 settings. Let’s take them one at a time.
(i) Choose Rigorous Coursework
Learning happens when you struggle with hard things. In the case of this study, the authors found that students who took classes with demanding coursework—especially classes requiring substantial reading and writing—learned more. Specifically, they found that classes requiring at least 40 pages of reading per week and at least one writing assignment of 20+ pages were much more conducive to learning than classes with less demanding requirements.
The authors summed it up like this:
Given these differences in curricular requirements associated with coursework patterns, it’s likely that students’ choices in coursework, even broadly conceptualized and measured, will have significant consequences for the development of their capacity to perform tasks—such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment—that require skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing.
In The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead, Political Scientist Charles Murray suggests a complementary approach: “Learn to love rigor”. By rigor, Murray means “the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive, or accurate”, and he thinks college is a good time to learn to love it:
If you’ve been told to get information on some problem, you’ve got to want to get all the information you can possibly find on that problem.
If you’ve had to do some calculations in the course of an assignment, you’ve got to want to replicate the entire analysis from scratch before you hand in your results.
If an assignment leads you to half a dozen different options to explore, you’ve got to want to explore all of them, and not mind if you “waste” a lot of time determining that five of the six are dead ends.
To be clear, he’s not just recommending that you do hard things, but that you learn to love doing them. As we established on the Self-Improvement page, you’ll find it easier to do that in a domain that interests you. So, here’s my CliffsNotes-style summary: If you want to learn a lot in college, choose a challenging subject that interests you and work really hard at it. That’s the best way to learn a lot, and you just may end up learning to love rigor for its own sake along the way.
(ii) Study, Alone
Next, study a lot. Based on a study comparing how students reported using their time in ~1960 and 2003, labor economists have found that students are spending a lot less time studying than they used to.** For example, full-time students in the 1960s spent roughly 40 hours per week on academic pursuits (i.e., combined studying and class time), while modern college students are spending only 27 hours per week on academic activities. A comparison of the time spent studying (not counting class time) was even more revealing: It dropped from 25 hours in the 1960s to 13 hours in 2003. Quoting from the study: “Study time fell for students of all demographic subgroups, within race, gender, ability and family background, overall and within major, for students who worked in college and for those who did not, and at four-year colleges of every type, size, degree structure and level of selectivity.” Not surprisingly, the authors of Academically Adrift found that time spent studying is positively associated with learning, even after controlling for external factors. Just like the need to challenge yourself with difficult material, you need to do a lot of studying if you want to improve.
And, if you’re going to study, try to study alone. While the results in Academically Adrift suggest more study time leads to more learning, the connection holds true only for studying alone. Surprisingly, the authors found that spending more time studying in groups leads to less learning. From my own experience, I can understand this finding: Study groups often turn into socialization groups. The bonding can be great for building friendships, but the improvement of critical thinking and analytical reasoning requires serious, concerted effort. While studying in groups is more fun, learning comes from struggle. If you want to learn, you need to spend a lot of time struggling on your own with the work.
That’s not to say time spent on other pursuits is necessarily a waste. As the authors of Academically Adrift concluded:
Spending time surfing the Internet in a dorm room ‘geeking out’ on ‘interest-driven’ pursuits, sitting on a quad and philosophically pondering one’s place in the universe, or simply hanging out at a neighborhood bar enjoying the camaraderie of friends are all activities likely to lead to social learning, creative insights, and potentially individual growth. We are skeptical, however, that many of these activities are also likely to be closely associated with academic learning as measured by traditional forms of assessment.
My advice is to try to do both: Invest time in studying alone and make time for the activities that allow you to live a full and satisfying life. Don’t go overboard or forget to study for your tests, but don’t let your studies prevent you from going out to the bars with friends either. It’s up to you to find the appropriate balance of activities to get everything you want out of college.
(iii) Engage With Faculty Outside the Classroom
And finally, engage with faculty. After controlling for external factors, the authors of Academically Adrift concluded that engaging with faculty outside of the classroom has a strong effect on learning. From my own experience, I know it can be easy to get complacent and not seek out professors beyond lectures. At many schools, lectures can be too large to allow for any serious engagement between professors and students, and smaller discussion sections are often led by teaching assistants. Don’t let this stop you, though; all professors seem to offer some way of engaging with them outside the classroom, usually through office hours. I don’t want to get too far off-track on providing advice on this matter, so I’ll just say this: I recommend you identify professors who explain complex subjects in an engaging way, then bring them your questions after you’ve made a serious effort to figure things out on your own. If you want advice on maximizing any of the other benefits of engaging with faculty (e.g., networking, gathering future references), your search engine of choice should be able to give you more guidance.
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*If you’re interested in learning more about this research, here’s a summary: Academically Adrift used results from the Collegiate Learning Assessment—a longitudinal study of 2,322 undergraduates at 24 colleges—to measure improvements in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving, and writing. Their dataset included only students who took the assessment in their first semester of college (Fall 2005) and at the end of their sophomore year (Spring 2007). The exam gave students “ninety minutes to respond to a writing prompt that is associated with a set of background documents.” A standardized scoring rubric was then used to judge each student’s submission based on “critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and problem solving—including how well the student assesses the quality and relevance of evidence, analyzes and synthesizes data and information, draws conclusions from his or her analysis, and considers alternative perspectives. In addition, the scoring rubric with respect to written communication requires that the presentation is clear and concise, the structure of the argument is well-developed and effective, the work is persuasive, the written mechanics are proper and correct, and reader interest is maintained.” (return to section)
**Babcock, Philip, and Mindy Marks. “The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from Half a Century of Time Use Data.” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 93, no. 2, May 2011, pp. 468–478. (return to section)