Digest No. 07 – January 2020 – CIC Digest of Recent Research

Digest No. 07 - January 2020

Student Hunger at Private Institutions

“I guess it’s changed my academic life because if I wasn’t worrying about where I was going to get food, and if it was going to be healthy, and if I had stuff to live off of where I didn’t have [to] work, then I would be able to study more” (p. 59). This quotation reflects the central thesis of this exploratory, qualitative study that examines food insecurity as a reason for disruptions in students’ social and academic experiences at an unnamed, affluent, private institution. Findings showed that some students in this selective university were food-insecure and that this problem interfered with students’ academic trajectories (namely, students who had to work longer hours could not find the time needed to study and perform their best in class) and social experiences (that is, students selected social experiences based more on free food options than actual interest).

Effect of Critical Thinking Education on College Students’ Unwarranted Beliefs

The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of critical thinking courses on helping students reduce their epistemically unwarranted beliefs, defined as “beliefs not founded on reliable reasoning or credible data” (p. 293). By using a longitudinal design with control groups, the authors were able to associate unwarranted belief reductions with exposure to and participation in a course titled “Science and Nonsense.” In addition, the authors also examined whether this association was due to demographic characteristics or other specific profiles. They conclude that their classroom-based intervention “has the potential to reach all students” and is “good news for educators” (p. 311).

Use of Nonacademic Factors in Holistic Undergraduate Admissions Reviews

This study examined the use of nonacademic factors on holistic admissions decision making. The authors adopted a multi-pronged approach to investigate the ways admissions officers use nonacademic factors when making decisions. They surveyed more than 300 admissions professionals; of those, they interviewed 19 who worked at one of ten private and public institutions with varying degrees of selectivity. Results indicated that these factors were often used differentially, based on the selectivity of the institution. While all institutions used nonacademic indicators of success as admissions criteria, officers from less selective institutions were more likely to use these factors to “admit students who might not otherwise be admitted” thus providing “an explanation for admitting students whose profile does not suggest that [they] will be academically successful” (p. 19).

Adjunct Faculty Members Teaching at Four-Year Institutions

The purpose of this paper was to provide an analytic review of research examining adjunct faculty members at bachelor’s-degree-granting institutions. This conceptual piece briefs readers on what is known about adjuncts and how institutions can best support these critical players in the higher education system. Accordingly, the major questions driving this effort underscore the importance of teaching in undergraduate education and also serve as the organizational framework for this review. The author notes, “Over the past 20 years individual researchers, or research teams, have begun to ask questions such as ‘What motivates adjunct faculty? Are they effective teachers? And how might institutions better support their efforts?’ Yet little research has brought these works together to present a larger view of adjunct faculty as teachers at bachelors-granting institutions, where they are increasingly concentrated” (p. 144). The author concludes with a series of thoughtful recommendations for educators interested in adjunct faculty.

Implications of Faculty Members’ Pretenure Emotions for Success in Teaching and Research

“I think I only submitted one [manuscript] in the first two years and it got rejected. I did not want to write because I did not want to get rejected. I did not want to produce something that sucked [was of poor quality]. So yeah, that fear really had a big impact.” (p. 1502).