ABSTRACT
Higher education is currently undergoing its most significant changes in decades. Student populations are shifting from high school graduates to adults who have been in the workplace for many years. More and more of these students demand alternatives to the full-time, on-campus study arrangements of the past. Those students who come fresh out of high school show increasing signs of unpreparedness and lack of motivation for higher learning (Erickson &Strommer, 1991). Decreases in public funding and efforts to contain the steadily rising costs of tuition are forcing universities to rethink the ways in which they deliver instruction. National studies of higher education have been critical of the result, claiming that many degree programs have failed to develop students’ critical thinking and social values (Boyer, 1987;Knox, Lindsay, &Kolb, 1993). Despite these problems universities continue to award degrees in record numbers and compete fiercely for new students. Classroom sizes remain high—especially during the first college years when individualized attention and support are most important—and many students seem more disengaged than ever.
