Helping College Students Succeed

A Model for Effective Intervention

Glenn Hirsch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135058258
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Consulenza psicoterapeutica

Glenn Hirsch offers professionals a user-friendly, comprehensive resource book of theories and specific techniques that can be used to enhance college student success. Dr. Hirsch offers readers an integrated model for change that includes both holistic assessments of academic difficulty and suggestions for three different levels of intervention based on the student's readiness and motivation for change. He also provides specific interview and testing strategies for determining the causes of academic difficulty.

1

CHAPTER

Must We Help? The Educational Covenant to Assist College Students With Academic Difficulties or Disabilities

We have to stop being teacher-centered and become student-centered. It is not what you think they need, but what they think they need.

—Mary Anne Guitar

They (University of Cambridge) haven’t devoted any significant effort or funds to improving access or removing other obstacles to disabled students. They don’t even know how many disabled people they employ.

—Stephen Hawking, speaking in 1994.

Chakita, a first-year college student, was overwhelmed with the workload at the state college she was attending. An A/B student in high school, she was becoming anxious about the Cs and Ds she was getting in her classes. The faculty members she asked for advice did not see it as their role to help her learn to study better and did not refer her to any campus resources. At the beginning of the next semester she received a letter informing her that she had been placed on academic probation.

Frank was recruited to the football team at a major urban research university from a rural high school where he had a 2.2 grade point average. After two university semesters his grade point average was so low that he was declared ineligible to play. Facing academic suspension, he left the university without receiving any help in finding a more compatible educational setting or career direction, his hopes of earning a university degree shattered.

For Bawan it was a full-time job just taking care of her young son, meeting all of her household responsibilities, and learning English. But last year she found daycare that allowed her to take one class a semester at a local community college. Her good grades motivated her to want to start taking two classes a semester, but she had no idea how to manage her time to do this. Her advisor was very encouraging but offered her no specific suggestions or referrals for help with time management.

A group of students with documented learning disabilities requested accommodations allowing them to modify the foreign language graduation requirement, which they had difficulty meeting due to their disabilities. In refusing the request, the college president stated his view that providing academic accommodations was inappropriate, citing the case of a student requesting accommodations just because she fell asleep in class. Much later, the students won major portions of a suit filed against the university, and the president admitted that the case he had cited was fictitious.

A Covenantal Relationship
Between College and Student

When the students discussed above accepted their colleges’ offers of admission, students and colleges entered into a covenantal relationship. Student commitments in this relationship included learning and using effective study skills, attending class, putting appropriate time and effort into meeting class requirements, and otherwise taking responsibility for leading academically productive lives. The commitments of the college included providing effective teaching, necessary learning resources such as libraries or laboratory resources, and guidance in helping students negotiate the demands of the institution.

Yet, in each of these actual cases, some aspect of that covenantal relationship broke down, leaving students in continued academic difficulty and the college at risk of failing to retain a student through graduation. These cases raise a challenging question about this covenantal relationship: What is the obligation of postsecondary educational institutions to help academically troubled students? As financial resources have tightened, some colleges and universities have distanced themselves and their missions from helping students in academic difficulty. To justify this mission shift, some members of the college community have argued that these students may not have the skills necessary to be successful in college and that limited resources should be focused on those students demonstrating the ability to successfully negotiate college work. The argument is also made that these students need remedial coursework that only community or technical colleges should be providing for students. However, these arguments fail to take into account that colleges are legally obligated to offer assistance to students with disabilities experiencing academic difficulty. In addition, for many students in academic difficulty with or without disabilities, the problem is not one of underpreparedness requiring remediation, but of capable students underachieving as a result of any number of educational, social, and psychological factors. It is not possible to know if these students are capable of college-level work without offering them assistance and evaluating the results of such an intervention.

Colleges Are Legally Obligated
to Serve Academically Troubled
Students With Disabilities

The number of first-year college students reporting themselves as having a disability has been increasing over time. In 1988, 7% of these students reported having a disability, compared to 9% in 1996 (Henderson, 1995, 1996). This translates into about one in every 11 students entering college with an identified disability. These students now have increased legal protection of their right to receive postsecondary education. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation, 1973) made it illegal for any programs receiving federal monies to exclude, discriminate against, or otherwise deny benefits to any persons with qualifying disabilities. A qualifying disability is any physical or mental impairment that substantially limits the person’s ability to perform major life activities including self-care, mobility, use of all senses, and behavior required by learning and vocational demands. The act was written specifically to include colleges, universities, and other postsecondary institutions such as vocational colleges. This act, and specifically the standards of compliance set forth in Section 504, began the process of opening many college doors to people with disabilities.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 (Americans, 1990) further opened the doors of higher education to students with disabilities. This act clarified the definition of disability to include not only physical disabilities, but also psychological problems such as mental health difficulties, attention deficit disorder, and learning disabilities. The act specified that postsecondary learning institutions were legally obligated to provide “reasonable accommodations” to individuals with these disabilities, allowing them comparable access to academic programs as that experienced by students without disabilities. Examples of such reasonable accommodations would include extending time to take tests, taking tests alone in a low-distraction environment, getting textbooks read on tape, offering academic materials in Braille, providing physical access to all college buildings, and providing tutoring and counseling services as needed.

A continuing series of complex legal challenges to the ADA are helping to clarify the specific obligations of colleges and students with disabilities. Court interpretations of the ADA have recognized the covenantal relationship between college and student by clarifying that it is the student’s responsibility to acquire professional documentation of the disability, inform the college about the disability, request reasonable accommodations, and use these accommodations appropriately (Heyward, 1993). Court decisions have also clarified that postsecondary educational institutions must provide meaningful access to qualified students with disabilities, take an individual student’s skills and abilities into account (instead of making assumptions based on general beliefs about a given disability), offer accommodations in a timely manner, and avoid creating financial or administrative hardships for these students that would not be faced by students without disabilities in the same setting.

Some educational institutions have opposed implementation of the ADA on the assumption that admission criteria and academic standards will be sacrificed just to allow students of questionable ability to enter degree and professional programs. However, the courts have repeatedly found that institutions have a right to maintain academic standards and skill requirements for professional degrees and are not obligated to lower these standards for students with disabilities. Rather, ADA is designed to legally guarantee that a person with a disability, who with accommodations is able to meet required academic standards, will be able to do so (Heyward, 1993).

Students Across the Full Range
of Academic Ability Experience
Academic Difficulty

Academic difficulty is hardly limited to students with disabilities. Students with and without disabilities experience academic difficulty for many different reasons, only one of which is lack of ability. While some academic community members believe that strong high school academic performance will lead seamlessly to academic success in college, this often proves untrue. The personal and academic transition to college is a great one, and even high-ability students do not always automatically make the transition smoothly. A survey of incoming freshmen (Higher Education Research Institute, 1998) suggested that many of these students had done 5 hours or less of homework per week in high school. With the typical college standard of 2-3 hours of outside work for every hour spent in class, first-year students taking a normal 15-credit course load could expect up to 45 hours of homework, a 9-fold increase. Many advisors and other student development professionals working with first-year students will quickly point out that even highly gifted students frequently do not take to that 9-fold increase easily.

While some entering college students do need remedial work, many academically troubled students are scholastically ready to learn college material. The causes of their academic difficulties are based not so much in lack of preparation, but rather in any number of other educational, social, and psychological factors which influence academic performance. In reviewing the literature on academic performance, Russell and Petrie (1992) identified 13 different factors that influence academic adjustment. These included academic factors (e.g., aptitude and ability, study skill competency, motivation), social/environmental factors (e.g., stress level, social support, work involvement, or family issues), and personality factors such as self-esteem. Interestingly, poor academic preparation and disability conditions were not even included in this seemingly comprehensive list.

Research Demonstrates the
Effectiveness of Interventions
With Academically Troubled Students

Considerable research effort has been spent studying the effectiveness of programs that help students in academic difficulty. Kulik, Kulik, and Schwalb (1983) did a meta-analysis of 60 such studies and found that the majority of the programs researched showed positive results for increasing academic performance and retention relative to control groups of students not participating in such programs. Furthermore, research has consistently demonstrated that the most effective interventions for academic problems involve study skills training combined with focused, goal-oriented counseling designed to teach the student stress management and other related psychological coping skills (Dendato & Diener, 1986; Lent & Russel, 1978; J. M. Williams, Decker, & Libassi, 1983). However, even counseling that focuses primarily on personal concerns that impact on academic performance can have a significant, positive impact on student retention (Wilson, Mason, & Ewing, 1997). Wlazelek and Coulter (1999) demonstrated the effectiveness of holistic problem assessment and counseling with students in academic jeopardy.

Research has also demonstrated the effectiveness of academic retention programs for students with disabilities. While much of this research has been done with younger students, there are some studies that have focused on intervention with secondary students (Bos & Van Reusen, 1991), and it is this research that would appear to generalize the best to the college student population. Deshler and Schumaker (1986) and Deshler, Schumaker, and Lenz (1984) have demonstrated the effectiveness of an eight-stage instructional methodology for teaching learning-disabled adolescents effective study strategies. Similar studies have documented effectiveness in teaching reading strategies (Schumaker, Deshler, Alley, Warner, & Denton, 1982), and mathematics skills (Montague & Bos, 1986).

In one study with college students, Vogel and Adelman (1992) found that compared to a non-learning-disabled matched control group, students with learning disabilities who received ongoing academic support had slightly higher grade point averages and significantly lower rates of failing classes. The students with learning disabilities generally took lighter course loads and up to one additional year to graduate compared to the matched controls, but the overall graduation rate did not differ significantly between the two groups.

Based on what is known about the needs of students with disabilities, strategies have been developed to create a more accommodating, inviting, and success-supporting campus climate for these students as they enter college (Kroeger & Schuck, 1993). Students with learning disabilities have been a particular focus of this literature, possibly because they represent a large percentage of college students with disabilities (Brinkerhoff, Shaw, & McGuire, 1993; Mangrum & Strichart, 1984; Scott, 1994, 1997).

In summary, the accumulated body of knowledge about academic performance demonstrates that academic difficulty emerges from a complex set of causal factors, the effects of which can negatively impact even academically gifted students. These causal factors can be grouped roughly into categories based on disability issues, learning skill deficits (e.g., poor reading ability), psychological factors such as low motivation, and remedial concerns (lacking academic readiness for college). Colleges may be legally obligated to serve only those students with disabilities. But since the knowledge is available to help develop and implement effective interventions for all academically troubled students, colleges have an academic and ethical responsibility to afford every student admitted the full opportunity to complete a degree.

However, even institutions of higher learning fully committed to serving students in academic difficulty do not have unlimited economic or human capital to devote to such programs. Therefore, these institutions must develop cost-effective, resource-efficient programs for helping students improve academic performance. Such programs would need to have the following components:

1 a holistic approach to diagnosing the causes of academic difficulty;

2 a cost-effective model for intervening with these students;

3 interventions that take into account the student’s motivation and readiness for change;

4 individualized interventions for specific types of academic difficulty; and

5 interventions that combine study and learni...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• 1 Must We Help? The Educational Covenant to Assist College Students With Academic Difficulties or Disabilities
• 2 Finding the Flash Point: A Model for Helping College Students in Academic Difficulty
• 3 Can We Talk? The Holistic Assessment Interview
• 4 Lack of Readiness, Underachievment, or Disability? Diagnosing Academic Difficulty
• 5 Lazy Students Don’t Exist! Helping Students Overcome Motivational Blocks to Success
• 6 It’s About Time! (Management)
• 7 Don’t Put Off Helping Students Who Procrastinate
• 8 The ABCs of Study Skill Improvement
• 9 Not to Worry: Helping Students Manage Academic Anxiety and Stress
• 10 The Journey Continues: Concluding Thoughts About Working With Students
• References
• Index