Noting that while formal operational thinking is essential to sociological learning, a majority of college freshmen are not yet fully formal thinkers. Maintains that introductory sociology courses must foster formal thinking in addition to teaching sociological content. Draws implications of revising goals and objectives to meet students' needs.…

The introductory course has a variety of objectives for both students and the college, including recruitment and screening of majors, provision of prerequisite knowledge, explorations of learning, developing commitment to college, and cognitive development. Fostering these goals depends on the students, faculty, and classroom climate. (MSE)

This paper reports on a study investigating the beliefs of general education faculty, including their assumptions about "typical" undergraduates' approaches to reasoning. The article maintains that in studies designed to identify and examine variables affecting complex cognitive tasks, researchers have discovered that performance often depends on…

This document examines the educational output of three alternative approaches to introductory macroeconomics at the University of Notre Dame. The framework for evaluation consists of the cognitive and affective tradeoffs entailed by using a new experimental course as opposed to two more traditional courses. The experimental course is a freshman…

The 16 essays in this book discuss transferable skills in higher education drawing on the experience and information gained from two projects based in England, the Enterprise in Higher Education (EHE), initiated in 1989; and the Royal Society of Arts Education for Capability Initiative, instituted in 1991. Section 1 contains essays on transferable…