While the quality and quantity of research on service-learning has increased considerably over the past 20 years, researchers as well as governmental and funding agencies have called for more rigor in service-learning research. One key variable in improving rigor is using relevant existing theories to improve the research. The purpose of this…

In responding to Caple's article on student development, focuses on ways to use the ideas in a college setting. Educators and counselors should facilitate student development, according to this theory, by fostering nonequilibrium. Results of such machinations would be unpredictable. Discusses implications for research, primarily phenomenological…

Research on school reform efforts and reform evaluation and the recognition that individual students are in constant transition and are members of multiple groups whose dynamics differ over the duration of schooling were examined. A conceptual framework for developing design and analysis strategies for investigating educational reform efforts is…

Two competing models of the relationship between college graduates' perceived learning and satisfaction with the college experience are examined, one representing a true effect and one treating the relationship as an artifact of the halo effect. It is recommended that researchers be cautious in interpreting self-reports of learning and…

This report describes the "Differential Coursework Patterns (DCP) Project," which developed the Cluster Analytic Model (CAM) to look at effects of different patterns of college coursework on the general learned abilities of students as determined by such measures as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test. The model looks for…

Although much has been written in support of a student development role for the student affairs professional, research documentation is lacking on the contributions made by student affairs staff to the development of students. A simple research methodology, which could be easily replicated on college campuses, to begin providing these missing data…

This study investigated differences in freshmen to senior student general education gains across institutions of higher education, with varying patterns of general education requirements using a mixed-effect structural equation model. The subjects were 6,409 students at 34 colleges and universities nationwide. Study procedures used American…