Why We Must Change: The Research Evidence.

ost faculty work long and hard. We care about educating ou r s tuden ts. Thanks to our eff orts , m any of them experience deep personal transformation during their college years. H o w e v e r, when we subject the quality of our collective work as educators to the same close examination we demand in our disciplines , we find a substantial body of evidence that clearly demonstrates a crisis of educational quality in our n a t i o n 's colleges and universities. This crisis should evoke a serious and determined response from the entire professoriate. But rather than a strong sense of urgency for change, we too often find complacency within our ranks. We seem to turn a blind eye to the quality of ou r educ at ional proces ses and results. The busyness of daily routine and the seeming rightness of the familiar obscures the need to change. Yet the task is urgent. We need to begin immediately to assess, evaluate, and improve the quality of our work. F o r t u n a t e l y, this improvement is as possible as it is urgent. The professional research literature in higher education can easily provide us with valuable information we can use to understand more fully our effectiveness as educators—if we would only use it. In this art icle, I h op e to acquaint readers with important research that has been done over the past three decades on how students learn and what constitutes an effective educational experience. Society expects college graduates to be able to think critically, solve complex problems, act in a principled manner, be dependable, read, write, and speak effectively, have respect for others, be able to adapt to change, and engage in lifelong learning. 1 But the educational experience for many college students does not meet these expectations. The stud-Lion F. Gardiner is an associate professor of zoology at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. His scholarly work focuses on the application of research on student learning and teaching to improving educational processes and student outcomes in colleges and universities. He is the author of three books on quality improvement in higher education, among them Redesigning Higher Education: Producing Dramatic Gains in Student Learning (1996), a review and synthesis of research.