This study examines the relationship between student goal orientation and student satisfaction, academic engagement, and achievement. A variety of studies has shown that the type of goal orientation determines students’ cognitive and behavioral reactions as well as their educational performance. Using data on 2309 college students from the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES), this study analyzes the relationship between different types of goal orientations and student behavior and academic outcomes. Three questions are addressed in this paper: First, it...
This paper focuses on the present condition and future of the professoriate and is part of a long-term study on how the academic profession is changing, now more rapidly than at any time in memory. These dramatic shifts have led to a deep restructuring of academic appointments, work, and careers. The question now looming is whether the forces that have triggered academic restructuring will, in time, so transform the academic profession that its role—its unique contribution—is becoming ever more vulnerable to dangerous compromise. Whether the academic profession is able to negotiate...
This paper outlines the main changes that have effected a transformation in the nature of academic work: on the one hand, the increasing diversification and specialisation of academic tasks, and on the other, new forms of control over academic work. An analysis of these trends leads to a discussion of the relationships between the evolution of academic work and non-academic work.
The University of California Commission on General Education
2007
In this report, the Commission on General Education in the 21st Century—a panel of University of California faculty and administrators—issues a call for renewed attention to general education in research universities, highlighting specific reforms for University of California campuses. In addition to analyzing the historical, institutional, and cultural contexts of general education in the United States, it acknowledges the forces that constrain investment in general education and lists recommendations to improve general education in the face of these constraints. Unlike other recent...
California has achieved considerable economic success through technological innovation and the formation of businesses based upon those technologies. This paper addresses some of the roles of universities in that success story. It starts with some measures of the contributions of innovation and a robust university structure to the California economy, drawn from the biotechnology and wine industries. This is followed by an exploration of some recent partnership structures involving universities with industry and/or the state government. Emphasis is on the University of California,...
This is a personal reflection on the impact of Internet technologies on higher education around the world over the last 13 years. It chronicles my observations of differences between perceptions and realities, of enthusiasm and disappointment, and the changes that have taken place in learning, teaching, and the structure of higher education during this period. Based on the work of others, this reflection also includes a prediction of the near term introduction of new instructional technologies and draws implications for higher education from these predictions and this history. I...
This study examined the conditional effects of student-faculty interaction in a large research university system, based on various student characteristics including gender, race, and socio-economic and first-generation status. The study utilized data from the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES), a longitudinal survey of UC undergraduate students based at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at UC Berkeley. Cross-tabulations with Chi-square statistics and blocked separate regression analyses were employed as analytical methods. The study found...
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is in the midst of tremendous economic development. With a rapidly changing economy, it is increasingly important for this expatriate dependent country to start training a native, modern workforce with the skills required to enter the workplace. The UAE must continue improving and developing their higher education system if it wants to create graduates with the training and education required to compete with students and workers from over-seas. This paper will describe the UAE’s higher education system, as well as current and potential obstacles for UAE...
While the positive effects generated by student-faculty interaction associated with multiple student outcomes are well-documented, little is known about how various student subgroups experience student-faculty interaction differently. Among studies that have investigated this issue, some demonstrate that the levels and effects of student-faculty interaction may differ by student gender, race, and major field. The current project improves our understanding of the conditional effects of student-faculty interaction by examining different patterns of student- faculty interaction for...
Is public tertiary education really in a crisis, and, if so, what is the crisis about? This paper analyses international aggregated data and examines to what extent there has been a crisis of public tertiary education in OECD countries in the past decade. It first focuses on relative enrolments in the public and private sectors to show that enrolments in the public sector have not significantly declined, and only marginally benefited the private for-profit sector. It then analyzes changes in the funding of tertiary education from the perspectives of tertiary education institutions,...