ABSTRACT
Incoming college students "are increasingly disengaged from the academic experience," according to the latest (1995) national survey of college freshmen put out each year by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute. Only 35 percent of students said they spent six or more hours a week studying or doing homework during their senior year in high school, down from 43.7 percent in 1987. And the 1995 survey shows the highest percentage ever of students reporting being frequently bored in class, 33.9 percent. Henry Bauer has kept charts since 1986, showing that his students have done progressively worse on final exams compared with mid-semester quizzes, even though they know that the same questions used on the quizzes will show up on the finals. The entertainment factor is popping up at many colleges these days-courses on Star Trek, use of videos and movies, even a cartoon music video on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes.
