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Between-College Effects on Students Reconsidered

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Abstract

Most of the research on the effects of college on students that examines the influences of institutional characteristics—what Pascarella and Terenzini (How college affects students: Findings and insights from twenty years of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 1991) called “between-college” effects—indicate that the descriptors typically used (e.g., size, type of control, curricular mission, selectivity) are generally poor predictors of between-college differences in virtually any student outcome once students’ precollege characteristics are controlled (economic and occupational attainment are the sole exceptions). Researchers have speculated that the conventional descriptors are too distal from students’ experiences to have much effect on differences in outcomes. The between-college effects literature, moreover, concerns itself almost exclusively with the direct effects of institutional characteristics. Using data from a nationally representative study of engineering programs on 31 campuses, this study explores two propositions: (1) that the effects of institutional characteristics in the college effects process are indirect, shaping the kinds of experiences students have, and (2) that institutions’ internal “organizational context” features (e.g., programs, policies, and faculty culture) have more influence on students’ learning-related experiences than do institutions structural characteristics (e.g., type of control, size, wealth, or selectivity). Findings lend modest support to both propositions.

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Notes

  1. The outcomes used to validate the predictive power of a range of student experiences included three, factorially derived and scaled measures of students’ engineering design, communication, and project leadership skills (details are available on request). Over the past 15 years, industry and ABET (engineering education’s accrediting body) have pressed engineering schools for curricular and pedagogical reforms that are likely to help produce graduates with these three (and other) skills that will be needed by “the engineers of 2020” (ABET 1997; National Academy of Engineering, 2004).

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 0550608). Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors, and no endorsement by the National Science Foundation should be inferred.

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  1. Institutional Research and Analysis, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, UTDC Building, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA

    Hyun Kyoung Ro

  2. Higher Education Program and Center for the Study of Higher Education, Pennsylvania State University, 400 Rackley Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Patrick T. Terenzini

  3. Office of Planning and Institutional Assessment, Pennsylvania State University, 502 Rider, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Alexander C. Yin

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  1. Hyun Kyoung Ro
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An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, November 18, 2010, Indianapolis, IN.

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Ro, H.K., Terenzini, P.T. & Yin, A.C. Between-College Effects on Students Reconsidered. Res High Educ 54, 253–282 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-012-9269-0

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