ABSTRACT
One of the professional responses to the movement for greater accountability in teaching was the effort by the Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education (AAHE) of the U.S. Department of Education (1984) to formulate principles for improving undergraduate education. The American Association for Higher Education Task Force on Best Practices in Higher Education began its work in 1986, at a time when the prominent arguments were about the content of undergraduate education, such as the relation of Western to non-Western studies and the criteria for inclusion in the literary canon, rather than how to teach effectively. The task force included professors from different disciplines and from schools of different sizes, all of whom had published research on teaching effectiveness (Gamson 1991, 5 -12). Their work involved reviewing the major longitudinal studies of college students that had mostly been accomplished in the 1960s (Becker, et al. 1968; Chickering 1969; Feldman and Newcomb 1969; Heath 1968; Katz and Associates 1968; Newcomb, et al. 1967; Perry 1970; Sanford 1962). According to Sorcinelli (1991, 13-26), their findings were also consistent with research on student development that was published more recently (Belenky, et al. 1986; Chickering and Associates 1981; Katachadourian and Boli 1985; Knefelkamp, et al. 1978; Parker and Schmidt 1982; Richardson, et al. 1983; Winter, et al. 1981). The original statement on best practices was published in the AAHE Bulletin in 1987. The AAHE principles have gained a foothold among professors, who otherwise are impatient with “education talk.” They provide one of the few statements about university teaching that is nationally recognized and not identified with a single group of researchers. The following sections discuss these best practices.
